Elastic proton–nucleus scattering and the optical potential in a relativistic mean field model Original Research Article

We describe elastic proton–nucleus scattering in a relativistic approach with optical potentials deduced from self-energies in a relativistic mean field description for the target nucleus. The energy-dependence of vector and scalar potentials is parametrized by fitting observables for elastic p–208Pb scattering to results from Dirac phenomenology. This energy dependence is then applied to elastic proton scattering on various other targets with energies between 200 MeV and 1 GeV. The energy and density dependence of the Schrödinger equivalent potential in nuclear matter and the total in-medium cross section is deduced and compared to other models.