Regionwise absorption in nuclear optical model

A mathematical procedure to calculate the contribution to the reaction cross-section from a shell of radiusr and thickness Δ around the scattering centre within the frame work of a nuclear optical model is presented. The method is illustrated by describing graphically the regionwise absorption in nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus optical scattering. It is demonstrated that unlike in nucleon-nucleus scattering, in the nucleus-nucleus scattering volume absorptive optical potential, in general, does not imply that absorption is taking place in the entire nuclear volume; it is confined to mostly the surface region.