Dirac phenomenology in nuclear structure and reactions

A recently developed relativistic theory of nuclear matter and of finite nuclei is extended to allow for consideration of the nucleon-nucleus interaction at positive energy. A new method of reducing the Dirac equation to a nonrelativistic Schroedinger equation is presented. This scheme is used, along with the results of calculations performed earlier for nuclear matter, to determine the parameters of the nuclear optical model. The results are in good agreement with the phenomenological local potentials conventionally used to analyze nucleon-nucleus scattering