New treatment of the one-particle continuum in nuclear reaction theory

A new method is proposed for the treatment of the one-particle continuum in nuclear reaction theory. The method comprises a matrix diagonalisation technique similar to that used in the eigenchannel theory. However, in contrast to the eigenchannel theory, this method does not require the $S$ matrix to be obtained in a diagonal form. It is shown that by a relaxation of this requirement, a numerically much faster method of treating the one-particle continuum can be developed.