Multiple scattering and N-body approaches to nuclear reactions

The relationship between conventional multiple scattering approaches and the recently developed N-body approaches to nuclear reactions is considered with a view towards elastic scattering applications. Connectivity expansions in the N-body approach and multiple scattering expansions in the Watson approach are developed by a common technique so that a comparison of the physical content of each can be made. In the N-body case this leads to a new derivation of the equations of Bencze, Redish, and Sloan in both particle-labelled and partition-labelled form and this yields new insight into minimal dimensionality of these equations and into the role of channel coupling schemes within this formulation. The relative simplicity and generality with which these results are obtained is designed to be easily understood by those unfamiliar with N-body formalisms. The two approaches are contrasted first for the three-particle problem and subsequently for the many-body problem. We argue that a strict adherence to the connected-kernel property which is advantageous for the three-particle problem may not be so advantageous for the many-body elastic scattering problem. Undesirable physical characteristics of the connectivity expansion for elastic scattering are identified and their rectification is discussed. The off-shell transformation associated with the N-body approach is examined critically. The origin of the multiplicity of N-body coupling schemes is elucidated. It is shown that a modified concept of connectivity, called inclusive connectivity, can be introduced to guide expansions which can be truncated in a physically meaningful way. The inclusive connectivity expansion is seen to be identical to the spectator expansion for an elementary projectile but differs in the case of a composite projectile