This dissertation explores two main topics: 1) Color Transparency and quasi-elastic knockout reactions involving pions and $ρ$ mesons; and 2) determination of the $J/ψ$-nucleon scattering amplitude and scattering length via $J/ψ$ electroproduction on the deuteron. It is shown that at the energies available at the COMPASS experiment at CERN, Color Transparency should be detectable in the reaction $π+A\to π+p+(A-1)^*$ (proton knockout). It is also shown that Color Transparency should be detectable in the electroproduction reaction $γ^*+A\toρ+p+(A-1)^*$ at small $Q^2$ (where $Q^2$ is the virtuality of the photon) but large $t$ (4-momentum transfer squared to the knocked out proton), which represents an as-yet unexplored kinematic region in the search for CT effects in electroproduction of vector mesons. Calculations are also presented for the reaction $γ^*+D\to J/ψ+p+n$ at JLab energies in order to determine the feasibility of measuring the elastic $J/ψ$-nucleon scattering amplitude and/or scattering length. It is found that it may be possible to measure the $J/ψ$-nucleon scattering amplitude at lower energies than previous measurements, but the scattering length cannot be measured.
I summarize recent results and discuss upcoming and planned experiments that attempt to elucidate how the structure of nucleons might be modified by nuclear binding.
Neutron-rich nuclei become increasingly sensitive to three-nucleon forces. These components of nuclear forces are at the forefront of theoretical developments based on effective field theories of quantum chromodynamics. We discuss our understanding of three-nucleon forces and their impact on exotic nuclei, and show how new measurements test and constrain them. Three-nucleon forces therefore provide an exciting link between theoretical and experimental nuclear physics frontiers.
New experimental data are presented on the energy dependence of the total cross sections for the np -> d eta and quasi-two-body pp -> pp eta reactions, where the final diproton is detected at very low excitation energy. Differential cross sections of pp -> pp eta away from threshold show the influence of higher partial waves and a partial wave decomposition is attempted.
We use proton-nucleus reaction data at intermediate energies to test the emerging new generation of chiral nucleon-nucleon (NN) potentials. Predictions from a high quality one-boson-exchange (OBE) force are used for comparison and evaluation. Both the chiral and OBE models fit NN phase shifts accurately, and the differences between the two forces for proton-induced reactions are small. A comparison to a chiral model with a less accurate NN description sets the scale for the ability of such models to work for nuclear reactions.
The present contribution reviews recent advances made toward a microscopic understanding of superfluidity in nuclei using many-body methods based on the BCS ansatz and low-momentum inter-nucleon interactions, themselves based on chiral effective field theory and renormalization group techniques.
Recent studies at Jefferson Lab show that there are a certain proportion of nucleons in nuclei have momenta greater than the so-called nuclear Fermi momentum $p_{F}$. Based on the transport model of nucleus-nucleus collisions at intermediate energies, nucleon high momentum caused by the neutron-proton short-range correlations in nuclei is constrained by comparing with $π$ and photon experimental data and considering some uncertainties. The high momentum cutoff value $p_{max}$ $\leq$ 2$p_{F}$ is obtained.
The study of spherical-deformed ground--state phase transitions in finite nuclei as a function of N and Z is hindered by the discrete values of the nucleon number. A resolution of the integer nucleon number problem, and evidence relating to phase transitions in finite nuclei, are discussed from the experimental point of view and interpreted within the framework of the interacting boson model.
While the main features of atomic nuclei are well described by nuclear mean-field models, there is a large and growing body of evidence which indicates an important additional role played by spatially-correlated nucleon-nucleon structures. The role of nucleonic structures was first suggested by Heidmann in 1950 to explain pick-up reactions of energetic nucleons. Since then a steady flux of new experimental evidence has confirmed the presence of similar structures inside atomic nuclei, dominated by correlations between pairs of nucleons. The role of these internal nucleon-nucleon correlations h…
For pseudoscalar meson electroproduction off the nucleon in parallel kinematics a relation between three polarization observables is derived. It is shown that, without Rosenbluth separation, a measurement of the longitudinal strength can be achieved through three different ways. They are discussed with preliminary MAMI data for the p(\vec e, e'\vec p)π^0 reaction in the energy range of the Delta(1232) resonance.
We propose a phenomenological approach to examine the role of short- and long-range nucleon-nucleon correlations in the quenching of single-particle strength in atomic nuclei and their evolution in asymmetric nuclei and neutron matter. These correlations are thought to be the reason for the quenching of spectroscopic factors observed in $\rm (e,e'p)$, $\rm (p,2p)$ and transfer reactions. We show that the recently observed increase of the high-momentum component of the protons in neutron-rich nuclei is consistent with the reduced proton spectroscopic factors. Our approach connects recent result…
Vector meson ($V = ω, ϕ$) production in near-threshold elementary nucleon-nucleon collisions $pp\to ppV$, $pn\to pnV$ and $pn\to dV$ is studied within an effective meson-nucleon theory. It is shown that a set of effective parameters can be established to describe fairly well the available experimental data of angular distributions and the energy dependence of the total cross sections without explicit implementation of the Okubo-Zweig-Iisuka rule violation. Isospin effects are considered in detail and compared with experimental data whenever available.
Pion-meson-exchange nucleon-nucleon potentials are derived for two nucleons in the intermediate states. The mesons we include are (i) pseudoscalar mesons: $π, η, η'$; (ii) vector mesons: $ρ, ω, ϕ$; (iii) scalar mesons: $a_{0}(980), \varepsilon(760), f_{0}(975)$; and (iv) the $J=0$ contribution from the Pomeron. Strong dynamical pair suppression is assumed, and at the nucleon-nucleon-meson vertices Gaussian form factors are incorporated into the relativistic two-body framework using a dispersion representation for the pion- and meson-exchange amplitudes. The Fourier transformations are performe…
Traditionally isospin violation (charge symmetry breaking and charge dependence) has been modeled by the exchange of mesons between two nucleons. Sources of isospin violation in these models include meson mass differences, meson mixing (of pseudoscalar, vector, and axial-vector mesons) and isospin violating couplings of mesons with nucleons. I will review the calculated results of this theoretical approach and the NN data on isospin violation.
Two-meson-exchange nucleon-nucleon potentials are derived where either one or both nucleons contains a pair vertex. Physically, the meson-pair vertices are meant to describe in an effective way (part of) the effects of heavy-meson exchange and meson-nucleon resonances. {}From the point of view of ``duality,'' these two kinds of contribution are roughly equivalent. The various possibilities for meson pairs coupling to the nucleon are inspired by the chiral-invariant phenomenological Lagrangians that have appeared in the literature. The coupling constants are fixed using the linear $σ$ model. We…
The properties of vector mesons in nuclear matter are discussed. I examine the constraints imposed by elementary processes on the widths of $ρ$ and $ω$ mesons in nuclear matter. Furthermore, results for the $ρ$- and $ω$-nucleon scattering amplitudes obtained by fitting meson-nucleon scattering data in a coupled-channel approach are presented.
Through a quantitative comparative study of the properties of deuteron and nucleon-nucleon interaction with chiral quark model and quark delocalization color screening model. We show that the $σ$-meson exchange used in the chiral quark model can be replaced by quark delocalization and color screening mechanism.
We employ meson-nucleon scattering data to deduce the properties of the low-mass vector mesons in nuclear matter, and present results for the $ρ$ and $ω$ in-medium spectral functions. The corresponding thermal emission rate for lepton pairs is also discussed.
We present a relativistic and unitary approach to pion- and photon-nucleon scattering taking into account the $πN$, $ρN$, $ωN$, $ηN$, $πΔ$, $K Λ$ and $K Σ$ channels. Our scheme dynamically generates the s- and d-wave nucleon resonances N(1535), N(1650), N(1520) and N(1700) and isobar resonances $Δ(1620)$ and $Δ(1700)$ in terms of quasi-local two-body interaction terms. We obtain a fair description of the experimental data relevant for slow vector-meson propagation in nuclear matter. The s-wave $ρ$- and $ω$-meson nucleon scattering amplitudes, which define the leading density modification of th…
We report the current status of exploring the dynamical aspect of the excited nucleon states through the comprehensive coupled-channels analysis of meson production reactions at the Excited Baryon Analysis Center of Jefferson Lab.
The study of nucleon resonances in electromagnetic meson production with the CLAS detector is discussed. The electromagnetic interaction is complementary to pion scattering in the exploration of the nucleon excitation spectrum. Higher mass states often decouple from the $Nπ$ channel and are not seen in $πN \to πN$. Photoproduction of mesons, such as $KΛ$, $ωp$ and $η^\prime p$ may be more sensitive to many of these states. The CLAS detector, combined with the use of energy-tagged polarized photons and polarized electrons, as well as polarized targets and the measurement of recoil polarization,…
The momentum distributions of pions and $ρ$-mesons in the nucleon are extracted from experiment. Perspectives of the quark microscopic theory of mesonic cloud are outlined.
The production of $η'$ mesons in the reactions $pp\to ppη'$ and $pn\to pnη' $ at threshold-near energies is analyzed within a covariant effective meson-nucleon theory. The description of cross section and angular distributions of the available data in this kinematical region in the $pp$ channel is accomplished by including meson currents and nucleon currents with the resonances $S_{11}(1650)$, $P_{11}(1710)$ and $P_{13}(1720)$. Predictions for the $pn$ channel are given. The di-electron production from subsequent $η'$ Dalitz decay $η' \to γγ^* \toγe^+e^-$ is also calculated and numerical resul…
Using an effective hadronic Lagrangian with physical hadron masses and coupling constants determined either empirically or from SU(4) flavor symmetry, we study the production cross sections of charm mesons from pion and rho meson interactions with nucleons. With a cutoff parameter of 1 GeV at interaction vertices as usually used in studying the cross sections for $J/ψ$ absorption and charm meson scattering by hadrons, we find that the cross sections for charm meson production have values of a few tenth of mb and are dominated by the s channel nucleon pole diagram. Relevance of these reactions …
We summarise recent progress in theory and experiment towards understanding etaprime meson interactions with nucleons and nuclei. Highlights include the production mechanism of etaprime mesons in proton-proton collisions close to threshold, the etaprime effective mass shift in nuclei and the determination of the etaprime-nucleon scattering length in free space.
Developed earlier concept of quasielastic knock out of pions from nucleons by high-energy electrons is propounded as a tool for checking microscopical model ($^3P_0$ - fluctuation) for decay of N to different channels $π+B$ and Preparata model of nucleus structure.
We establish the model-independent spin structure of the matrix elements for the near-threshold scalar meson production in $pp-$ and $np$-collisions, when the final particles are emitted in S-state. Polarization phenomena are derived in a general form. The properties of the $t-$channel dynamics, which is based on different meson exchanges, are studied in terms of the $s-$channel parametrization of the matrix element. The prediction of a 'realistic' model, based on $π+σ$-exchanges are also presented.
In a recent paper [Phys.\ Rev.\ C{\bf 49}, 2142 (1994)], Haberzettl presented cluster N-body equations for arbitrarily large systems of nucleons and mesons. Application to the three-nucleon system is claimed to yield a new kind of three-nucleon force. We demonstrate that these three-nucleon equations contain double counting.
The meson photoproductions off nucleons in the chiral quark model are described. The role of the S-wave resonances in the second resonance region is discussed, and it is particularly important for the Kaon, $η$ and $η'$ photoproductions.
The Schwinger-Dyson equations for the nucleon and meson propagators are solved self-consistently in an approximation that goes beyond the Hartree-Fock approximation. The traditional approach consists in solving the nucleon Schwinger-Dyson equation with bare meson propagators and bare meson-nucleon vertices; the corrections to the meson propagators are calculated using the bare nucleon propagator and bare nucleon-meson vertices. It is known that such an approximation scheme produces the appearance of ghost poles in the propagators. In this paper the coupled system of Schwinger-Dyson equations f…
Present and prospective fundamental symmetry tests with nucleons, nuclei and atoms are probing for possible new physics at the TeV scale and beyond. These ongoing and proposed table-top as well as accelerator-based experiments are thus a vital component of the Intensity Frontier. At the same time, these tests provide increasingly sophisticated probes of long-distance strong interactions that are responsible for the structure of nucleons and nuclei. In this community report, some of the most compelling opportunities with nucleons, nuclei and atoms are summarized, drawing largely on input receiv…
The quark-meson coupling model for a nucleon is considered. The model describes a nucleon as an MIT bag, in which quarks are coupled to scalar and vector mesons. A set of coupled equations for the quark and the meson fields are obtained and are solved in a self-consistent way. It is shown that the mass of a nucleon as a dressed MIT bag interacting with sigma- and omega-meson fields significantly differs from the mass of a free MIT bag. A few sets of model parameters are obtained so that the mass of a dressed MIT bag becomes the nucleon mass. The results of our calculations imply that the self-…
Nucleon and meson effective masses in the nonlinear Relativistic Mean - Field Theory (RMF) introducing a nonlinear omega - rho and sigma coupling motivated by the Quark Meson Coupling model (QMC) is explored. It is shown that, in contrast to the usual Walecka model, not only the effective nucleon mass m_{eff,N} but also the effective sigma, rho meson masses (m_{eff, sigma}, m_{eff, rho}) and the effective omega meson mass m_{eff, omega} are nucleon density dependent.
The role of mesons, particularly the pion, in the structure of nucleons is reviewed and investigated. Since quark-antiquark pairs are likely to ``transform" into mesons at large distances, mesons are expected to contribute to nucleon structure. Their effects on the Gottfried sum rule, on the strangeness content of the nucleon, and on the spin of the nucleon are discussed.
A model is developed for the hadronic and electromagnetic interaction in the two-nucleon system above pion threshold in the framework of meson, nucleon and $Δ$ degrees of freedom. It is based on time-ordered perturbation theory and includes full meson retardation in potentials and exchange currents as well as loop contributions to the nucleonic one-body current. Results for $NN$ scattering and deuteron photodisintegration are presented.
The weak decay as well as the strong nucleon coupling constants of the isoscalar axial vector meson $f_1 (1285)$ are estimated within the octet quark model. It is shown that the empirical value for the coupling of $\overline{s}s$ quarkonium to nucleons can be understood by attributing the $f_1(1285)$-nucleon coupling to the $a_0πN$ triangle diagram.
Thermal photon emission rates due to meson-nucleon interactions have been evaluated. An exhaustive set of reactions involving p(\bar p), n(\bar n), rho, omega, a_1, pi and eta is seen to provide a sizeable contribution to the emission rate from hot hadronic matter. Contributions from baryonic resonances are found to be negligibly small.
We compute the binding energies, radii, and densities for selected medium-mass nuclei within coupled-cluster theory and employ the "bare" chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction at order N3LO. We find rather well-converged results in model spaces consisting of 15 oscillator shells, and the doubly magic nuclei 40Ca, 48Ca, and the exotic 48Ni are underbound by about 1 MeV per nucleon within the CCSD approximation. The binding-energy difference between the mirror nuclei 48Ca and 48Ni is close to theoretical mass table evaluations. Our computation of the one-body density matrices and the corresponding …
We obtain the RPA summed one-meson exchange potential between nucleons in symmetric nuclear matter at zero temperature, from a model which includes $ρ$, $σ$, $ω$ and $π$ mesons. The behavior of rho mesons inside the medium is first discussed using different schemes to extract a finite contribution from the vacuum polarization. These schemes give qualitatively different results for the in-medium rho mass. The results are discussed in connection with the non-renormalizability of the model. We next study the modified potential as density increases. In the intermediate distance range, it is qualit…
We perform ab initio calculations for nuclei around ^{16}O, ^{40}Ca, and ^{56}Ni using realistic nucleon-nucleon forces. In particular, ^{56}Ni is computed as the heaviest nucleus in this kind of ab initio calculation. Ground-state and single-particle energies including three-body-cluster effects are obtained within the framework of the unitary-model-operator approach. It is shown that the CD-Bonn nucleon-nucleon potential gives quite good results close to the experimental values for all nuclei in the present work.
Magnetic moment and radius of the nucleon are calculated in a nonlocal extension of the chiral linear σ-model. Properties of the nonlocal model under the vector and axial transformations are considered. The conserved electromagnetic and vector currents, and partially conserved axial vector current are obtained. In the calculation of the nucleon electromagnetic vertex the π- and σ-loop diagrams are included. Contribution from vector mesons is added in the vector meson dominance model with a gauge-invariant photon-meson coupling. The nonlocality parameter associated with the πN interaction is fi…
The temperature and density dependence of the meson-nucleon vertex form factors is studied in the framework of thermofield dynamics. Results are obtained for two rather different nucleon-nucleon potentials: the usual Bonn potential and the variation with a softer $πNN$ form factor, due to Holinde and Thomas. In general, the results show only a modest degree of sensitivity to the choice of interaction.
Starting with a quark model of nucleon structure in which the valence quarks are strongly correlated within a nucleon, the light nuclei are constructed by assuming similar correlations of the quarks of neighboring nucleons. Applying the model to larger collections of nucleons reveals the emergence of the face-centered cubic (FCC) symmetry at the nuclear level. Nuclei with closed shells possess octahedral symmetry. Binding of nucleons are provided by quark loops formed by three and four nucleon correlations. Quark loops are responsible for formation of exotic (borromean) nuclei, as well. The mo…
The importance of the effects of nucleon-nucleon (NN) short-range correlations (SRC) and Gribov inelastic shadowing (IS) on various high energy scattering processes involving nuclear targets is demonstrated within an improved Glauber-Gribov approach.
We show that the contact couplings of neutral pseudoscalar and axial mesons to the nucleon are proportional to $Δs$, the fraction of nucleon spin carried by the strange quark sea, and thus are strongly suppressed relative to the couplings of charged mesons to the nucleon. On the other side, recent high accuracy data on $η$ photoproduction at threshold reveal the need for non--negligibile $ηNN$ vertices, while fitting $\bar N N$ phase shifts by means of effective meson exchange potentials requires a substantial presence of $f_1$ mesons there. We here advocate the idea to attribute the couplings…
Using an isospin-dependent transport model, we study the effects of nuclear symmetry energy on two-nucleon correlation functions in heavy ion collisions induced by neutron-rich nuclei. We find that the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy affects significantly the nucleon emission times in these collisions, leading to larger values of two-nucleon correlation functions for a symmetry energy that has a stronger density dependence. Two-nucleon correlation functions are thus useful tools for extracting information about the nuclear symmetry energy from heavy ion collisions.
The possible role played by vector mesons in inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering is investigated. In the context of the convolution model, we calculate self-consistently the scaling contribution to the nucleon structure function using the formalism of time-ordered perturbation theory in the infinite momentum frame. Our results indicate potentially significant effects only when the vector meson---nucleon form factor is very hard. Agreement with the experimental antiquark distributions, however, requires relatively soft form factors for the $πN$, $ρN$ and $ωN$ vertices.
At zero-density, meson-nucleon vertex corrections to vacuum polarization are studied in the $σ-ω$ model with the cutoff. It is shown that the properties of the vertex corrections to vacuum polarization are somewhat different from those described by the ordinary renormalization procedures when the cutoff is small (< 5 GeV). The low-energy effective Lagrangian is constructed in the framework of the renormalization group method. The weak tensor and derivative couplings of meson-nucleon interactions may be needed in the low-energy effective theory of mesons and nucleons.
The advantages to study charge--symmetry breaking and especially the phenomenon of f0-a0 mixing in nucleon--nucleon and deuteron--deuteron induced reactions are discussed.
The quark-meson coupling model due to Guichon is formulated on the basis of the independent quark model of the nucleon proposed by Bogoliubov and is applied to a phenomenological description of symmetric nuclear matter. The model predicts, at saturation density, the compressibility $K=249$ MeV and the quark effective mass $m_q^*= 249.1$ MeV, {the effective nucleon mass being $M^*=747.3$ MeV}. The predicted nucleon mass radius is $r=0.93$ fm.
We considered the quark-meson coupling model for a nucleon. The model describes a nucleon as an MIT bag, in which quarks are coupled to the scalar and the vector mesons. A set of coupled equations for the quark and the meson fields are obtained and are solved in a self-consistent manner. We show that the mass of a dressed MIT bag interacting with $σ$- and $ω$-meson fields differs considerably from the mass of the free MIT bag. The effects of the density-dependent bag constant are investigated. The results of our calculations imply that the self-energy of the bag in the quark-meson coupling mod…
A brief overview on recent model calculations for near threshold pion production in nucleon-nucleon collisions is given. Results from our own investigations of the reactions $pp \rightarrow ppπ^0$ and $pn \rightarrow dπ^0$ are presented. Direct production, heavy meson exchange and pion rescattering are taken into account. For the latter a T-matrix obtained from a microscopic model of the $πN$ interaction is employed. We obtain a significant contribution from rescattering, but not enough to describe the data for $pp \to ppπ^0$. The missing production rate can be provided by heavy meson exchange…
We develop a model to evaluate the formation rate of the heavy mesic nuclei in the two nucleon pick-up reactions, and apply it to the $^6$Li target cases for the formation of heavy meson-$α$ bound states, as examples. The existence of the quasi-deuteron in the target nucleus is assumed in this model. It is found that the mesic nuclei formation in the recoilless kinematics is possible even for heavier mesons than nucleon in the two nucleon pick-up reactions. We find the formation rate of the meson-$α$ bound states can be around half of the elementary cross sections at the recoilless kinematics …
We present the first study of pairing in nuclei including three-nucleon forces. We perform systematic calculations of the odd-even mass staggering generated using a microscopic pairing interaction at first order in chiral low-momentum interactions. Significant repulsive contributions from the leading chiral three-nucleon forces are found. Two- and three-nucleon interactions combined account for approximately 70% of the experimental pairing gaps, which leaves room for self-energy and induced interaction effects that are expected to be overall attractive in nuclei.
We investigate a relativistic quantum field theory in the particle representation using a non-perturbative variational technique. The theory is that of two massive scalar particles, `nucleons' and `mesons', interacting via a Yukawa coupling. We calculate the general Euclidean Green function involving two external nucleons and an arbitrary number of external mesons in the quenched approximation for the nucleons. The non-perturbative renormalization and truncation is done in a consistent manner and results in the same variational functional independent of the number of external mesons. We check …
Recent analyses of backward meson electroproduction support the validity of a collinear QCD factorization framework for these hard exclusive reactions. This opens a way to the extraction of nucleon-to-meson transition distribution amplitudes (TDAs) from the experimental data. Similarly to the generalized parton distributions, TDAs - after the Fourier transform in the transverse plane - carry valuable information on the transverse location of hadron constituents. We address the properties of integrated nucleon-to-meson TDAs in the impact parameter representation. We argue that the emerging pict…
We propose a simple meson-exchange model of the photoproduction of $ρ$- and $ω$-mesons off protons near threshold ($E_γ$ less than 2 GeV). This model provides a good description of the available data and implies a large $ρ$-nucleon interaction in the scalar channel ($σ$-exchange). We use this phenomenological interaction to estimate the leading contribution to the self-energy of $ρ$-mesons in matter. The implications of our calculation for experimental studies of the $ρ$-meson mass in nuclei are discussed.
A microscopic calculation of near-threshold eta-meson production in the reaction NN -> NNeta is presented. It is assumed that the eta meson is produced via direct emission and via elementary rescattering processes MN -> etaN of various mesons M = pi, rho, etc. As a novel feature the amplitudes for the latter production mechanism are taken from a multi-channel meson-exchange model of the pi N system developed by the Juelich group which contains explicitly the channels pi N, rho N, eta N, sigma N, and pi Delta. Furthermore, effects of the NN interaction in the final as well as in the initial sta…
Using baryon chiral perturbation theory including vector mesons, we analyse various continuum contributions to the isoscalar electromagnetic spectral functions of the nucleon induced by the leading order couplings.
Within the relativistic mean-field approach, we extend the Miyazaki model, where the NN$σ$ and NN$ω$ interactions are modified to suppress the couplings between positive- and negative-energy states of a nucleon in matter. Assuming appropriate density-dependence of the meson-nucleon couplings, we study nuclear matter and finite nuclei. The model can reproduce the observed properties of $^{16}$O and $^{40}$Ca well. We also examine if the model is natural.
