We have studied volume integrals of the central part of optical potentials extracted from data analyses for a variety of light and heavy systems. The data-extracted integrals present a quite simple behavior as a function of the relative velocity between target and projectile. This behavior is system independent and, therefore, it reflects a feature of the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction itself. The overall results are in good agreement with the predictions of the São Paulo potential, which is a model for the nuclear interaction that so far has been employed mostly in analyses of heavy-ion reactions.

• Received 23 March 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.72.014603