Using Similarity Renormalization Group Methods to Analyze Optical Potentials

Similarity Renormalization Group (SRG) operations evolve Hamiltonians by continuous unitary transformations, driving hard potentials to softer potentials by decoupling high- and low-momentum components. Using a toy model, we examine properties of the optical potential through SRG transformations and we study the effects of commonly used approximation methods on the SRG-evolved potential. Furthermore, we see the prospects for using the SRG to decouple the projectile and target in high energy scattering.