Binding effects in proton-nucleus elastic scattering

The effects of the struck nucleon-core binding potential on the first-order term of the Kerman, McManus, and Thaler (KMT) expansion of the nucleon-nucleus optical potential are calculated for the elastic scattering of protons from ${}_{}{}^{16}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{O}$ at 200 MeV. The binding effects are expressed as a momentum-transfer-dependent energy shift in the off-shell nucleon-nucleon t matrix. Numerical results are based on the Paris nucleon-nucleon potential together with both harmonic oscillator or Woods-Saxon single-particle wave functions for the target. The calculations show that these binding effects introduce only small corrections to the optical potential and calculated observables in the intermediate energy region when compared with the impulse approximation.