  The Feshbach theory of the optical potential naturally leads to a microscopic
description of scattering in terms of the many-body self-energy. We consider a
recent calculation of this quantity for 16O and study the possibility of
applying it at astrophysical energies. The results obtained for the phase
shifts and the 16O(p,\gamma) capture suggest that such studies are feasible but
the calculations require some improvement geared to this specific task.
