Elastic scattering of heavy ions and a modified liquid drop model

Abstract

The repulsion due to the nonlinearity of a Schr6dinger equation for the elastic scattering of heavy ions is approximated by the compression energy stored in the region of contact of two colliding liquid drops with trapezoidal densities. Qualitative and quantitative estimates show the required repulsion to be in line with literature results. The absolute maximum for the projectile energy at which our model is still expected to be applicable is given by Er<6 MeV.