Nuclear sizes and the optical model

The study of the nuclear scattering of strongly interacting elementary particles including nucleons, pions and anti-protons and of composite particles, and the interpretation of this scattering in terms of the optical model, is reviewed. The complications surrounding the interpretation of nuclear size information from scattering data are discussed and an indication is given of the areas of confidence and uncertainty in the determination of size parameters. The current state of knowledge on the nuclear matter distribution and particularly the neutron distribution, as obtained from theoretical approaches, coulomb energy differences and nuclear scattering is reviewed.