Microscopic optical potential framework applied to neutron scattering on deformed $^{48,50}$Cr

Abstract

We formulate and implement a microscopic framework to derive an optical potential from the solution to an effective Hamiltonian and use it to calculate neutron scattering cross sections for the deformed nuclei $^{24}$Mg, $^{48}$Cr and $^{50}$Cr. This approach is based on a symmetry-restored multi-excitation generator coordinate method (GCM), enabling the consistent treatment of both nuclear structure and reaction observables. Through this method, non-local optical potentials corresponding to a Hamiltonian can potentially be constructed for any nucleus in the whole nuclide chart. We use this to perform reaction calculations employing quadrupole deformed triaxial configurations, obtaining results for $A\approx 50$ chromium isotopes, and study the properties of the calculated non-local optical potentials. This work further advances the unified treatment of structure and reaction, within a framework that exploits the intrinsic symmetries of nuclei.