Computing Scattering Cross Sections For Spherically Symmetric Potentials

This paper introduces students and instructors to the use of Scilab for calculating phase shifts from phenomenological potentials in nuclear, atomic, and molecular scattering, beginning with a Riccati-type nonlinear differential equation derived from the time-independent Schr$\ddot{\text{o}}$dinger equation. For spherically symmetric potentials, this equation can be easily solved using Xcos, a Scilab toolbox. \cite{PRC}\cite{bobby} Scilab is open source software that is used for numerical computations and can be freely downloaded for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.\cite{scilab} Xcos is a Scilab toolbox dedicated to the modeling and simulation of hybrid dynamic systems \cite{rachna}. Xcos provides users with the ability to model complex dynamical systems using a block diagram editor (GUI based), offering a step-by-step procedure for learning to solve complex differential equations interactively.