Evolving optical potentials to low resolution

The Similarity Renormalization Group (SRG) evolves Hamiltonians by continuous unitary transformations, driving hard potentials to softer potentials by decoupling high- and low-momentum components. The SRG will shift high-momentum physics such as short-range correlations from the wavefunction to the operator when calculating nuclear observables such as cross sections. Previously we used a toy one-dimensional model to examine whether optical potentials behaved similarly under SRG transformations, and demonstrated much faster convergence of the optical potential expansion [1]. Extending these studies to realistic interactions faces multiple challenges. We start addressing them by constructing a folding potential suitable for d(n,d)n transfer reactions using realistic nucleon-nucleon (NN) interactions, While initially we apply a local projection of the NN forces and other approximations to enable easier computations, we can study the impact of SRG evolution on the perturbativeness of the optical potential, including the NN tensor force.