Semimicroscopic description of neutron inelastic scattering by nuclei of medium mass

In the framework of the quasiparticle-phonon model (QPM) of the nucleus a formalism for the semimicroscopic description of scattering of low-energy neutrons by spherical nuclei is developed. The potential of the neutron-nucleus interaction is constructed as a folding of the QPM nuclear transition densities and the M3Y effective nucleon-nucleon interaction. Calculations of the direct and compound cross sections for elastic and inelastic scattering of 1.5 to 3.0 MeV neutrons by /sup 58/Ni are performed. Satisfactory agreement with the experimental data is obtained.