A systematic study of nucleon-nucleus differential cross sections using Saxon-Woods and constant density models.

Elastic scattering of nucleons is an important tool in nuclear physics which is used to study the structure of nuclei and the properties of the strong force that binds nucleons together. We present a systematic study of elastic scattering of protons from light nuclei by applying a Saxon-Woods model to calculate differential cross sections. The Saxon-Woods calculations are compared with a constant density model and available experimental data. Python subroutines were developed to parse data from the National Nuclear Data Center, creating a smaller database specific to this project. Multiple energies from 65 to 200 MeV are examined and fit to the experimental data in order to accurately fit the Saxon-Woods parameters. We discuss how the different incident energies impact the Saxon-Woods parameters.