Effects of the in-medium NN interaction on total reaction and neutron removal cross sections

We discuss calculations of total reaction cross sections between complex nuclei, σ, using optical limit and few-body Glauber models in which the free nucleon-nucleon cross sections σ are replaced by their (reduced) values in the nuclear medium. This replacement lowers σ by at most a few percent when σ is determined from the local matter density in each overlapping volume element of the significant projectile-target trajectories. This relatively small effect contrasts with reductions of about 10% in σ reported by Xiangzhou et al., who assume a global value for the matter density throughout the interaction region. For two-neutron halo nuclei, we investigate the significance of these in-medium effects for the neutron-removal cross sections, σ. We show that use of an in-medium σ raises σ for He but lowers it for Li, because of their different halo sizes.