Comprehensive Formalism for Nuclear Reaction Problems. I. Derivation of Existing Reaction Theories

Abstract

An attempt is made to reduce the confusion arising from the existence of many different theories of resonance reactions. The method is to set up a formalism which is sufficiently general so that individual theories may be obtained by appropriate specialization. Such a formalism is obtained by suitably generalizing that devised by Bloch for a smaller range of theories. The formalism facilitates comparison of the structure of the various theories. Also, as we shall show in a subsequent paper, it gives a neat and systematic framework for study of the line-broadening problem.