We carry out three-body-model calculations for a proton-rich Borromean nucleus $^{17}$Ne by assuming a $^{15}$O + $p$ + $p$ structure. To this end, we use a density-dependent contact interaction between the valence protons, explicitly treating also the Coulomb interaction. We find that the two-particle density distribution for $^{17}$Ne is similar to that for $^{16}$C, which has two valence neutrons outside the $N$ = 8 core. That is, the two protons take a spatially compact configuration, while the Coulomb repulsion plays a minor role. This indicates that there is a strong diproton correlation in the ground state of the $^{17}$Ne nucleus. We also show that the Coulomb interaction reduces the expectation value of the proton-proton interaction by about 14\%.
We discuss a role of diproton correlation in two-proton emission from the ground state of a proton-rich nucleus, $^6$Be. Assuming the three-body structure of $α+ p + p$ configuration, we develop a time-dependent approach, in which the two-proton emission is described as a time-evolution of a three-body metastable state. With this method, the dynamics of the two-proton emission can be intuitively discussed by monitoring the time-dependence of the two-particle density distribution. With a model Hamiltonian which well reproduces the experimental two-proton decay width, we show that a strongly cor…
We solve the Faddeev equations for 11Li (n+n+9Li) using hyperspherical coordinates and analytical expressions for distances much larger than the effective ranges of the interactions. The lowest resonances are found at 0.65 MeV (1/2+, 3/2+, 5/2+) and 0.89 MeV (3/2+, 3/2-) with widths of about 0.35 MeV. A number of higher-lying broader resonances are also obtained and related to the Efimov effect. The dipole strength function and the Coulomb dissociation cross section are also calculated. PACS numbers: 21.45.+v, 11.80.Jy, 21.60.Gx
Is $^{40}$Mg a Borromean halo nucleus? A case built on the electric-dipole response
The University of Manchester(曼彻斯特大学);Akal University(阿卡尔大学);Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University(大阪大学核物理研究中心);Universidad de Sevilla(塞维利亚大学);Osaka Metropolitan University(大阪公立大学);RIKEN Nishina Center(理化学研究所西村中心);Hokkaido University(北海道大学);University of Warsaw(华沙大学)
The ground state and low-lying continuum states of 6He are found within a shell model scheme, in a basis of two-particle states built out of continuum p-states of the unbound 5He nucleus, using a simple pairing contact-delta interaction. This accounts for the Borromean character of the bound ground state, revealing its composition. We investigate the quadrupole response of the system and we put our calculations into perspective with the latest experimental results. The calculated quadrupole strength distribution reproduces the narrow 2+ resonance, while a second wider peak is found at about 3.…
The recently extracted matter radius of carbon isotope $^{22}$C allows us to estimate the mean-square distance of a halo neutron with respect to the center-of-mass of this nucleus. By considering this information, we suggest an energy region for an experimental investigation of the unbound $^{21}$C virtual state. Our analysis, in a renormalized zero-ranged three-body model, also indicates that the two-neutron separation energy in $^{22}$C is expected to be found below $\sim$0.4~MeV, where the $^{22}$C is approximated by a Borromean configuration with a pointlike $^{20}$C and two $s$-wave halo …
Borromean nuclear cluster structures are expected at the corresponding driplines. We locate the regions in the nuclear chart with the most promising constituents, it being protons and alpha-particles and investigate in details the properties of the possible borromean two-alpha systems in medium heavy nuclei. We find in all cases that the alpha-particles are located at the surface of the core-nucleus as dictated by Coulomb and centrifugal barriers. The two lowest three-body bound states resemble a slightly contracted $^{8}\text{Be}$ nucleus outside the core. The next two excited states have mor…
A Borromean nucleus is a bound three-body system which is pairwise unbound because none of the two-body subsystem interactions are strong enough to bind them in pairs. As a consequence, the single-particle spectrum of a neutron in the core of a Borromean nucleus is purely continuum, similarly to the spectrum of a free neutron, but two valence neutrons are bound up in such a core. Most of the usual approaches do not use the true continuum to solve the three-body problem but use a discrete basis, like for example, wave functions in a finite box. In this paper the proper continuum is used to solv…
Starting from chiral two-nucleon (2NF) and chiral three-nucleon (3NF) potentials, we present a detailed study of 17Ne, a Borromean system, with the Gamow shell model which can capture continuum effects. More precisely, we take advantage of the normal-ordering approach to include the 3NF and the Berggren representation to treat bound, resonant and continuum states on equal footing in a complex-momentum plane. In our framework, 3NF is essential to reproduce the Borromean structure of 17Ne, while the continuum is more crucial for the halo property of the nucleus. The two-proton halo structure is …
By introducing a mass asymmetry in a non-Borromean three-body system, without changing the energy relations, the virtual state pole cannot move from the negative real axis of the complex energy plane (with nonzero width) and become a resonance, because the analytical structure of the unitarity cuts remains the same.
Background. Knockout reactions with proton targets provide an invaluable tool to access the properties of two-neutron halo nuclei. Recently, experimental results for the average opening angle as a function of the intrinsic neutron momentum in 11Li have shown a localization of dineutron correlations on the nucleus surface. Purpose. Study the model dependence and the effect of distortion and absorption on the opening angle distributions to assess the reliability of this observable to extract properties of Borromean two-neutron halo nuclei. Method. A quasifree sudden model is used to describe the…
We discuss the geometry of the highly quantal nuclear three-body systems composed of a core plus two loosely bound particles. These Borromean nuclei have no single bound two-body subsystem. Correlation plays a prominent role. From consideration of the $B(E1)$ value extracted from electromagnetic dissociation, in conjunction with HBT-type analysis of the two valence-halo particles correlation, we show that an estimate of the over-all geometry can be deduced. In particular we find that the opening angle between the two neutrons in $^{6}$He and $^{11}$Li are, respectively, $θ_{nn} = {83^{\circ}}^…
To probe the role of the intrinsic structure of the projectile on sub-barrier fusion, measurement of fusion cross sections has been carried out in $^{9}$Be + $^{197}$Au system in the energy range E$_{c.m.}$/V$_B$ $\approx$ 0.82 to 1.16 using off-beam gamma counting method. Measured fusion excitation function has been analyzed in the framework of the coupled-channel approach using CCFULL code. It is observed that the coupled-channel calculations, including couplings to the inelastic state of the target and the first two states of the rotational band built on the ground state of the projectile, …
We discuss the energy and angular distributions of two emitted neutrons from the dipole excitation of typical weakly-bound Borromean nuclei, $^{11}$Li and $^6$He. To this end, we use a three-body model with a density dependent contact interaction between the valence neutrons. Our calculation indicates that the energy distributions for the valence neutrons are considerably different between the two nuclei, although they show similar strong dineutron correlations in the ground state to each other. This different behaviour of the energy distribution primarily reflects the interaction between the …
The structure of $^{22}$C plays a vital role in the new physics at subshell closure of $N=16$ in the neutron-rich region. We study the two-neutron correlations in the ground state of the weakly-bound Borromean nucleus $^{22}$C sitting at the edge of the neutron-drip line and its sensitivity to ${\rm core}$-$n$ potential. For the present study, we employ a three-body (${\rm core}+n+n$) structure model designed for describing the Borromean system by explicit coupling of unbound continuum states of the subsystem (${\rm core}+n$). We use a density-independent contact-delta interaction to describe …
A dripline nucleus $^{22}$C is studied in a Borromean three-body model of $^{20}$C+$n$+$n$. The valence neutrons, interacting via a realistic potential, are constrained to be orthogonal to the occupied orbits in $^{20}$C. We obtain ample results supporting that $^{22}$C is an ideal $S$-wave two-neutron halo nucleus: The ground state is bound by 390-570 keV, the root mean square neutron and proton radii are 4.0 and 2.4 fm, and the two neutrons are predominantly in $(s_{1/2})^2$ orbits. The binding mechanism of $^{22}$C is discussed. One- and two-body density distributions elucidate the halo cha…
The lowest-lying states of the Borromean nucleus $^{17}$Ne ($^{15}$O+$p$ + $p$) and its mirror nucleus $^{17}$N ($^{15}$N+$n$ + $n$) are compared by using the hyperspheric adiabatic expansion. Three-body resonances are computed by use of the complex scaling method. The measured size of $^{15}$O and the low-lying resonances of $^{16}$F ($^{15}$O+$p$) are first used as constraints to determine both central and spin-dependent two-body interactions. The interaction obtained reproduces relatively accurately both experimental three-body spectra. The Thomas-Ehrman shifts, involving excitation energy …
One-neutron removal $(p,pn)$ reactions induced by two-neutron Borromean nuclei are studied within a Transfer-to-the-Continuum (TC) reaction framework, which incorporates the three-body character of the incident nucleus. The relative energy distribution of the residual unbound two-body subsystem, which is assumed to retain information on the structure of the original three-body projectile, is computed by evaluating the transition amplitude for different neutron-core final states in the continuum. These transition amplitudes depend on the overlaps between the original three-body ground-state wav…
In this study, a phenomenological model is proposed based on Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) theory and applied to investigate the two-proton ($2p$) radioactive half-lives of nuclei near or beyond the proton drip line. The total diproton-daughter nucleus interaction potential is composed of the Hulthen-type electrostatic term and the centrifugal term. The calculated $2p$ radioactive half-lives can accurately reproduce the existing 10 experimental datasets of five true $2p$ radioactive nuclei with $σ$ = 0.736. In addition, we extend this model to predict the half-lives of possible $2p$ radioact…
We investigate the two-proton capture reaction of the prominent rapid proton capture waiting point nucleus, $^{68}$Se, that produces the borromean nucleus $^{70}$Kr ($^{68}$Se$+p+p$). We apply a recently formulated general model where the core nucleus, $^{68}$Se, is treated in the mean-field approximation and the three-body problem of the two valence protons and the core is solved exactly. The same Skyrme interaction is used to find core-nucleon and core valence-proton interactions. We calculate $E2$ electromagnetic two-proton dissociation and capture cross sections, and derive the temperature…
We perform three-body model calculations for soft dipole excitations of the proton-rich Borromean nucleus $^{17}$Ne. To this end, we assume that $^{17}$Ne takes the $^{15}$O+p+p structure, in which the two valence protons are excited from the $0^+$ ground state configuration to $1^-$ continuum states. We employ a density-dependent contact force for the nuclear part of the pairing interaction, and discretize the continuum states with the box boundary condition. We show by explicitly including the Coulomb interaction between the valence protons that the Coulomb repulsion does not significantly a…
The Borromean $^6$He nucleus is an exotic system characterized by two `halo' neutrons orbiting around a compact $^4$He (or $α$) core, in which the binary subsystems are unbound. The simultaneous reproduction of its small binding energy and extended matter and point-proton radii has been a challenge for {\em ab initio} theoretical calculations based on traditional bound-state methods. Using soft nucleon-nucleon interactions based on chiral effective field theory potentials, we show that supplementing the model space with $^4$He+$n$+$n$ cluster degrees of freedom largely solves this issue. We an…
Employing the time-dependent approach, we investigate a quantum tunneling decay of many-particle systems. We apply it to a one-dimensional three-body problem with a heavy core nucleus and two valence protons. We calculate the decay width for two-proton emission from the survival probability, which well obeys the exponential decay-law after a sufficient time. The effect of the correlation between the two emitted protons is also studied by observing the time evolution of the two-particle density distribution. It is shown that the pairing correlation significantly enhances the probability for the…
The status of the light hypernuclei is reviewed, and discussed with models based either on the Nijmegen-RIKEN baryon--baryon interaction or on recent studies using chiral effective field theory. The latter suggests a significantly shorter range for the $ΛΛ$ interaction, and this favours the formation of a Borromean state made of two neutrons and two hyperons. Various corrections are discussed, in particular the coupling of $NΛ$ to $NΣ$, or of $ΛΛ$ to $NΞ$, and the role of tensor forces. The new nucleus $(n,n,Λ,Λ)$ could be produced in various reactions, in particular deuteron--deuteron scatter…
We study the Borromean nuclei formed by a core nucleus and two neutrons in a nonrelativistic effective field theory formalism considering both neutron-neutron and neutron-core interactions. We provide formulae of the charge and matter radii, and successfully reproduce the universal relation proposed by Hongo and Son based on the approximation of an infinite neutron-neutron scattering length and neglecting the neutron-core scattering. Once the realistic finite neutron-neutron and neutron-core scattering lengths are used, the charge and matter radii are influenced by the neutron-core channel in …
The Borromean nucleus $^{17}$Ne ($^{15}$O$ + p + p$) is investigated by using the hyperspheric adiabatic expansion for a a three-body system. The measured size of $^{15}$O and the low-lying resonances of $^{16}$F ($^{15}$O$ + p$) are first used as constraints to determine both central and spin-dependent two-body interactions. Then, the ground state structure of $^{17}$Ne is found to be an almost equal mixture of $s^2$ and $d^2$ proton-$^{15}$O relative states, the two lowest excited states have about 80% of $sd$-mixed components, and for the next two excited three-body states the proton-$^{15}…
There has been an upsurge of interest in two-nucleon decays thanks to the studies of nucleon-nucleon correlations. In our previous work, based on a novel time-dependent three-body approach, we demonstrated that the energy and angular correlations of the emitted nucleons can shed light on the structure of nucleonic pairs formed inside the nucleus. In this work, we apply the new framework to study the decay dynamics and properties of some extreme proton-rich and neutron-rich oxygen isotopes, including two-proton ($2p$) decays of $^{11,12}$O and two-neutron ($2n$) decay of $^{26}$O. Here we show …
We investigate the spatial structure of the two-neutron wave function in the Borromean nucleus $^{11}$Li, using a three-body model of $^9$Li $+n+n$, which includes many-body correlations stemming from the Pauli principle. The behavior of the neutron pair at different densities is simulated by calculating the two-neutron wave function at several distances between the core nucleus $^9$Li and the center of mass of the two neutrons. With this representation, a strong concentration of the neutron pair on the nuclear surface is for the first time quantitatively established for neutron-rich nuclei. T…
Background: In recent years properties of light rare isotopes have been measured with high accuracy. At the same time, the theoretical description of light nuclei has made enormous progress, and properties of, e.g., the Helium isotopes can now be calculated {\it ab initio}. These advances make those rare isotopes an ideal testing ground for effective field theories (EFTs) built upon cluster degrees of freedom. Purpose: Systems with widely separated intrinsic scales are well suited to an EFT treatment. The Borromean halo nucleus $^6$He exhibits such a separation of scales. In this work an EFT i…
We investigate the region of the nuclear chart around $A \simeq 70$ from a three-body perspective, where we compute reaction rates for the radiative capture of two protons. One key quantity is here the photon dissociation cross section for the inverse process where two protons are liberated from the borromean nucleus by photon bombardment. We find a number of peaks at low photon energy in this cross section where each peak is located at the energy corresponding to population of a three-body resonance. Thus, for these energies the decay or capture processes proceed through these resonances. How…
11Li is a Borromean nucleus, where two out of three objects as 9Li + n and two neutrons independently do not form bound systems. Two neutrons should form a di-neutron cluster in the nuclear field generated by the 9Li core nucleus. We treat di-neutron clustering by solving the two neutron relative wave function precisely by using the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction so that the spatial clustering structure is obtained quantitatively within the whole 11Li nucleus. This di-neutron clustering is an essential dynamics to form the halo structure by making a compact di-neutron cluster, which distribu…