Global Dirac optical potentials for elastic proton scattering from heavy nuclei

We present global Dirac optical model fits to elastic proton scattering data from heavy nuclear targets at energies between 65 and 1040 MeV. Such optical potentials provide critical input for a wide variety of nuclear reactions. The energy and mass number dependence of the parameters in the Lorentz four-vector and scalar potentials of Dirac phenomenology are given. The characteristic features of the potentials are discussed and the predictive power of the global approach presented here is tested for both interpolation and extrapolation.