Two body data alone cannot determine the potential uniquely, one needs three-body data as well. A method is presented here which simultaneously fits local or nonlocal potentials to two-body and three-body observables. The interaction of composite par
ticles, due to the Pauli effect and the indistinguishability of the constituent particles, is genuinely nonlocal. As an example, we use a Pauli-correct nonlocal fish-bone type optical model for the $alpha-alpha$ potential and derive the fitting parameters such that it reproduces the two-$alpha$ and three-$alpha$ experimental data.
