  Background: Eclipse effect of the neutron and proton in a deuteron target is
essential to correctly describe high-energy deuteron scattering. The
nucleus-deuteron scattering needs information not only on the nucleus-proton
but also the nucleus-neutron interaction, for which no direct measurement of
the nucleus-neutron cross sections is available for unstable nuclei.
  Purpose: We systematically evaluated the total reaction cross sections by a
deuteron target to explore the feasibility of extracting the nucleus-neutron
interaction from measurable cross sections.
  Methods: High-energy nucleus-deuteron collision is described by the Glauber
model, in which the proton and neutron configuration of the deuteron is
explicitly taken into account.
  Results: Our calculation reproduces available experimental total reaction
cross section data on the nucleus-deuteron scattering. The possibility of
extracting the nucleus-neutron total reaction cross section from
nucleus-deuteron and nucleus-proton total reaction cross sections is explored.
The total reaction cross sections of a nucleus by proton, neutron, and deuteron
targets can be expressed, to good accuracy, in terms of the nuclear matter
radius and neutron skin thickness. Incident-energy dependence of the total
reaction cross sections is examined.
  Conclusions: The total reaction cross section on a deuteron target includes
information on both the nucleus-neutron and nucleus-proton profile functions.
Measuring the cross sections by deuteron and proton targets is a promising tool
to extract the nuclear size properties.
