  Background: Elastic scattering is probably the main event in the interactions
of nucleons with nuclei. Even if this process has been extensively studied in
the last years, a consistent description, i.e. starting from microscopic two-
and many-body forces connected by the same symmetries and principles, is still
under development.
  Purpose: In this work we study the domain of applicability of microscopic
two-body chiral potentials in the construction of an optical potential.
  Methods: We basically follow the KMT approach to build a microscopic complex
optical potential and then we perform some test calculations on 16O at
different energies.
  Results: Our conclusion is that a particular set of potentials with a
Lippmann-Schwinger cutoff at relatively high energies (above 500 MeV) has the
best performances reproducing the scattering observables.
  Conclusions: Our work shows that building an optical potential within Chiral
Perturbation Theory is a promising approach to the description of elastic
proton scattering, in particular, in view of the future inclusion of many-body
forces that naturally arise in such framework.
