Forging the link between nuclear reactions and nuclear structure

A review of the recent applications of the dispersive optical model (DOM) is presented. Emphasis is on the nonlocal implementation of the DOM that is capable of describing ground-state properties accurately when data like the nuclear charge density are available. The present understanding of the role of short- and long-range physics in determining proton properties near the Fermi energy for stable closed-shell nuclei has relied mostly on data from the (e, e′ p) reaction. Hadronic tools to extract such spectroscopic information have been hampered by the lack of a consistent reaction description that provides unambiguous and undisputed results. The DOM, conceived by Claude Mahaux, provides a unified description of both elastic nucleon scattering and structure information related to single-particle properties below the Fermi energy. We have recently introduced a nonlocal dispersive optical potential for both the real and imaginary part. Nonlocal absorptive potentials yield equivalent elastic differential cross sections for ⁴⁰Ca as compared to local ones but change the l-dependent absorption profile suggesting important consequences for the analysis of nuclear reactions. Below the Fermi energy, nonlocality is essential for an accurate representation of particle number and the nuclear charge density. Spectral properties implied by (e, e′ p) and (p, 2p) reactions are correctly described, including the energy distribution of about 10% high-momentum protons obtained at Jefferson Lab. The nonlocal DOM allows a complete description of experimental data both above (up to 200 MeV) and below the Fermi energy in ⁴⁰Ca. It is further demonstrated that elastic nucleon-nucleus scattering data constrain the spectral strength in the continuum of orbits that are nominally bound in the independent-particle model. Extension of this analysis to ⁴⁸Ca allows a prediction of the neutron skin of this nucleus that is larger than most predictions made so far.