Proton Inelastic Scattering in the Interacting Boson Model: Formalism and Application to the Ge Isotopes

The application of the interacting boson model to the coupled channel description of inelastic proton scattering is studied. The radial shape of the transition potentials is determined by analogy to the usual geometrical models, whereas the reduced matrix elements are calculated from the boson Hamiltonian. The general formalism is applied to scattering from the Ge isotopes. We find a better description for the heavier isotopes in terms of an O(6)-symmetric model than for a vibrational model.