  Feshbach's projection formalism in the particle-hole model space leads to a
microscopic description of scattering in terms of the many-body self-energy. To
investigate the feasibility of this approach, an optical potential for O-16 is
constructed starting from two previous calculations of the self-energy for this
nucleus. The results reproduce the background phase shifts for positive parity
waves and the resonances beyond the mean field.
  The latter can be computed microscopically for energies of astrophysical
interest using Green's function theory.
