Nuclear Cross Sections and the Size of the Nucleus

The recent experiments on the total inelastic cross sections for 190-Mev deuterons on various target nuclei demand a considerably larger nuclear radius than is usually accepted to explain the experimental results. It is shown that this result is not inconsistent with the total nuclear cross sections for 90-Mev neutrons if a nonsquare-well nuclear shape is taken. Taking for numerical simplicity a parabolic shape, the radius (measured to the edge of the distribution) that is obtained is R=1.6A1/3×10^-13 cm. The average radius is R=1.0A1/3×10^-13 cm. This result is compared with other determinations of the nuclear radius.