General Theory of Nuclear Scattering: the Feshbach Kerman-Koonin Approach

We extend the Feshbach-Kerman-Koonin theory (1) of low and medium energy (10-200 MeV) nucleon-nucleus scattering to describe multi-particle emission processes. The original FKK considered processes with only a single outgoing particle. However, multi-particle emission processes become significant at energies as low as 50 MeV and grow in importance at higher energies. Besides augmenting the Feshbach-Kerman-Koonin theory by adding a description of multi-particle processes, we have improved the theory at the low energy end (10-30 MeV) by uncovering a new class of multistep compound processes. We have developed a formalism within the Feshbach-Kerman-Koonin framework to describe these processes while retaining the elegant structure of the Feshbach-Kerman-Koonin theory. We use this formalism to analyze the 14 MeV ^ {93}Nb(n, n^' ) reaction and find an improved agreement between the theoretical prediction and the experimental data. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253 -1690.).