Nucleon-Nucleon and Nucleon-Nucleus Optical Models for Energies to 3 GeV and the Question of NN Hadronization

Within the key issues of hadronic physics one of the interesting issues in nuclear physics is whether there is a transition region between meson-nucleon and quark-gluon degrees of freedom in the NN interaction. This question is relevant for pairs of free nucleons as well as for nucleon pairs immersed in nuclear matter. From NN phase shifts we deduce a dibaryonic scale of 1 GeV for the soft core NN potential strengths at nucleon separation r equal 0.25 to 0.5 fm. A short range intermediate transition, with fusion and fission of the two scattered nucleons into a dibaryon with prevailing quark-gluon dynamics, is conjectured from NN optical models for T-lab greater 1.5 GeV. From efforts and progress of nucleon-nucleus scattering analysis in the GeV region some results are presented. This is our first step for an in-medium search for transitions from the meson-nucleon into the quark-gluon sector using NA optical models.