Nuclear sizes of Ca40,42,44,48 from elastic scattering of 104 MeV alpha particles. II. Nuclear density distributions

The elastic scattering of 104 MeV α particles from Ca40,42,44,48 has been analyzed by a single-folding model with a density-dependent effective interaction. Nuclear density distributions have been extracted using various descriptions including Fourier-Bessel series which distinctly reduces the model dependence of the results and enables realistic estimates of errors. Differences of the density shapes of the Ca isotopes are well determined showing evidence for a neutron skin in Ca48. The resulting root mean square radii are compared to the results obtained from other methods. The sensitivity and limitations of various methods are discussed. NUCLEAR REACTIONS Ca40,42,44,48(α, α), Eα=104 MeV; folding model analyses of σ(θ), density-dependent interaction, Fourier-Bessel densities, deduced isotopic differences of nuclear density distributions.