Imaginary Part of the Optical Potential

The imaginary part of the optical potential has been investigated for low-energy incoming neutrons, by means of the nucleon-nucleon cross sections in nuclear matter. The cross sections have been calculated under the assumption that pair correlations for low excited states of nuclear matter are the same as those formed in the ground state. The dependence of the effective mass on the single-particle momentum has been taken into consideration using an empirical solution which reproduces the present assumptions for the single-particle spectrum. The results have been applied to the nuclear surface in the Thomas-Fermi approximation. The maximum in the imaginary potential was found to be at the surface outside of the half-density radius. For low incident energies it is about 1.5×{}10^-13 cm beyond this radius.