  To take full advantage of experimental facilities such as FRIB for
applications to nuclear astrophysics, nuclear structure, and explorations of
neutrinos and fundamental symmetries, we need a better understanding of the
interplay of reaction and structure theory. The renormalization group (RG) is
the natural tool for maintaining a consistent treatment of reaction and
structure. Here we make a first study of RG for optical potentials, which are
important ingredients for direct reactions. To simplify the analysis, we use a
pedagogical one-dimensional model and evolve toward low RG resolution using the
similarity RG (or SRG). We show how SRG decoupling at low resolution carries
over to the optical potential and enhances perturbative approximations, and how
induced SRG nonlocality compares to the nonlocality of the optical potential.
We discuss the results in the larger context of consistent SRG evolution of
operators and wave functions in the analysis of direct reactions.
