  A microscopic calculation of the optical potential for nucleon-nucleus
scattering has been performed by explicitly coupling the elastic channel to all
the particle-hole (p-h) excitation states in the target and to all relevant
pickup channels. These p-h states may be regarded as doorway states through
which the flux flows to more complicated configurations, and to long-lived
compound nucleus resonances. We calculated the reaction cross sections for the
nucleon induced reactions on the targets $^{40,48}$Ca, $^{58}$Ni, $^{90}$Zr and
$^{144}$Sm using the QRPA description of target excitations, coupling to all
inelastic open channels, and coupling to all transfer channels corresponding to
the formation of a deuteron. The results of such calculations were compared to
predictions of a well-established optical potential and with experimental data,
reaching very good agreement. The inclusion of couplings to pickup channels
were an important contribution to the absorption. For the first time,
calculations of excitations account for all of the observed reaction
cross-sections, at least for incident energies above 10 MeV.
