Effects of deuteron potentials on deuteron-induced nonelastic cross sections based on the intranuclear cascade model

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the choice of deuteron potential affects the nonelastic cross sections of C12, Ca40, Ni58, and Pb208 in the low-energy region below 200 MeV within the extended framework of the intranuclear cascade model, in which a three-body proton-neutron-target system is introduced to incorporate naturally the decomposition and capture reactions from weakly bound deuterons. To determine an appropriate potential for the two nucleons of the deuteron, we compare two phenomenological potentials with the Gaussian potential that we have used previously. Specifically, we examine the Reid and Coester-Yen soft-core potentials and find that they give reduced nonelastic cross sections. To investigate the role of the potential, we separate it into the tail region in the outer part and the soft-core region in the central part. By using a gluing method to connect the Gaussian potential smoothly to the Yukawa tail, we show that the tail has no appreciable effect for any of the targets. On the other hand, by adding a soft core to the ordinary Gaussian potential, we show that the soft core has appreciable effects, especially in heavier nuclei such as Pb208, the reason being the reduced breakup process with a soft-core potential from the deuteron rotation due to the Coulomb potential. The results of this study show that while the Yukawa tail has no appreciable effect, soft-core potentials tend to give reduced nonelastic cross sections, especially for heavy nuclei.