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The Woods–Saxon potential is a mean field potential for the nucleons inside the atomic nucleus, which is used to describe approximately the forces applied on each nucleon, in the nuclear shell model for the structure of the nucleus. The potential is named after Roger D. Woods and David S. Saxon.
The form of the potential, in terms of the distance r from the center of nucleus, is:
V = − V 0 1 + exp {\displaystyle V=-{\frac {V_{0}}{1+\exp}}}
where V0 represents the potential well depth,a is a length representing the "surface thickness" of the nucleus, and R = r 0 A 1 / 3 {\displaystyle R=r_{0}A^{1/3}} is the nuclear radius where r0 = 1.25 fm and A is the mass number.