arXiv subjects

Dean Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Dean Lee.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Dependence of the triple-alpha process on the fundamental constants of nature

We present an ab initio calculation of the quark mass dependence of the ground state energies of ^4He, ^8Be and ^{12}C, and of the energy of the Hoyle state in ^{12}C. These investigations are performed within the framework of lattice chiral Effective Field Theory. We address the sensitivity of the production rate of carbon and oxygen in red giant stars to the fundamental constants of nature by considering the impact of variations in the light quark masses and the electromagnetic fine-structure constant on the reaction rate of the triple-alpha process. As carbon and oxygen are essential to life as we know it, we also discuss the implications of our findings for an anthropic view of the Universe. We find strong evidence that the physics of the triple-alpha process is driven by alpha clustering, and that shifts in the fundamental parameters at the \simeq 2 - 3 % level are unlikely to be detrimental to the development of life. Tolerance against much larger changes cannot be ruled out at present, given the relatively limited knowledge of the quark mass dependence of the two-nucleon S-wave scattering parameters. Lattice QCD is expected to provide refined estimates of the scattering parameters in the future.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2013

Finite volume effects in low-energy neutron-deuteron scattering

We present a lattice calculation of neutron-deuteron scattering at very low energies and investigate in detail the impact of the topological finite-volume corrections. Our calculations are carried out in the framework of pionless effective field theory at leading order in the low-energy expansion. Using lattice sizes and a lattice spacing comparable to those employed in nuclear lattice simulations, we find that the topological volume corrections must be taken into account in order to obtain correct results for the neutron-proton S-wave scattering lengths.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2013

Causality, universality, and effective field theory for van der Waals interactions

We analyze low-energy scattering for arbitrary short-range interactions plus an attractive 1/r^6 tail. We derive the constraints of causality and unitarity and find that the van der Waals length scale dominates over parameters characterizing the short-distance physics of the interaction. This separation of scales suggests a separate universality class for physics characterizing interactions with an attractive 1/r^6 tail. We argue that a similar universality class exists for any attractive potential 1/r^{alpha} for alpha >= 2. We also discuss the extension to multi-channel systems near a magnetic Feshbach resonance. We discuss the implications for effective field theory with attractive singular power law tails.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2013

Viability of carbon-based life as a function of the light quark mass

The Hoyle state plays a crucial role in the helium burning of stars that have reached the red giant stage. The close proximity of this state to the triple-alpha threshold is needed for the production of carbon, oxygen, and other elements necessary for life. We investigate whether this life-essential condition is robust or delicately fine-tuned by measuring its dependence on the fundamental constants of nature, specifically the light quark mass and the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. We show that there exist strong correlations between the alpha-particle binding energy and the various energies relevant to the triple-alpha process. We derive limits on the variation of these fundamental parameters from the requirement that sufficient amounts of carbon and oxygen be generated in stars. We also discuss the implications of these results for an anthropic view of the universe.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2013

Causality constraints for charged particles

In quantum systems with short-range interactions, causality imposes nontrivial constraints on low-energy scattering parameters. We investigate these causality constraints for systems where a long-range Coulomb potential is present in addition to a short-range interaction. The main result is an upper bound for the Coulomb-modified effective range parameter. We discuss the implications of this bound to the effective field theory for nuclear halo systems. In particular, we consider several examples of proton--nucleus and nucleus--nucleus scattering. For the bound-state regime, we find relations for the asymptotic normalization coefficients (ANCs) of nuclear halo states. As an application of these relations, we extract the ANCs of the excited 2+ and 1- states in O-16 from alpha--C-12 scattering data.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2013

Radiative capture reactions in lattice effective field theory

We outline a general method for computing nuclear capture reactions on the lattice. The method consists of two major parts. In this study we detail the second part which consists of calculating an effective two-body capture reaction on the lattice at finite volume. We solve this problem by calculating the two-point Green's function using an infrared regulator and the capture amplitude to a two-body bound state. We demonstrate the details of this method by calculating on the lattice the leading M1 contribution to the radiative neutron capture on proton at low energies using pionless effective field theory. We find good agreement with exact continuum results.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2013

Effective Field Theory for Bound State Reflection

Elastic quantum bound-state reflection from a hard-wall boundary provides direct information regarding the structure and compressibility of quantum bound states. We discuss elastic quantum bound-state reflection and derive a general theory for elastic reflection of shallow dimers from hard-wall surfaces using effective field theory. We show that there is a small expansion parameter for analytic calculations of the reflection scattering length. We present a calculation up to second order in the effective Hamiltonian in one, two, and three dimensions. We also provide numerical lattice results for all three cases as a comparison with our effective field theory results. Finally, we provide an analysis of the compressibility of the alpha particle confined to a cubic lattice with vanishing Dirichlet boundaries.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2012

Structure and rotations of the Hoyle state

The excited state of the 12C nucleus known as the "Hoyle state" constitutes one of the most interesting, difficult and timely challenges in nuclear physics, as it plays a key role in the production of carbon via fusion of three alpha particles in red giant stars. In this letter, we present ab initio lattice calculations which unravel the structure of the Hoyle state, along with evidence for a low-lying spin-2 rotational excitation. For the 12C ground state and the first excited spin-2 state, we find a compact triangular configuration of alpha clusters. For the Hoyle state and the second excited spin-2 state, we find a "bent-arm" or obtuse triangular configuration of alpha clusters. We also calculate the electromagnetic transition rates between the low-lying states of 12C.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2012

Weakly bound molecules trapped with discrete scaling symmetries

When the scattering length is proportional to the distance from the center of the system, two particles are shown to be trapped about the center. Furthermore, their spectrum exhibits discrete scale invariance, whose scale factor is controlled by the slope of the scattering length. While this resembles the Efimov effect, our system has a number of advantages when realized with ultracold atoms. We also elucidate how the emergent discrete scaling symmetry is violated for more than two bosons, which may shed new light on Efimov physics. Our system thus serves as a tunable model system to investigate universal physics involving scale invariance, quantum anomaly, and renormalization group limit cycle, which are important in a broad range of quantum physics.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Causality bounds for neutron-proton scattering

We consider the constraints of causality and unitarity for the low-energy interactions of protons and neutrons. We derive a general theorem that non-vanishing partial-wave mixing cannot be reproduced with zero-range interactions without violating causality or unitarity. We define and calculate interaction length scales which we call the causal range and the Cauchy-Schwarz range for all spin channels up to J = 3. For some channels we find that these length scales are as large as 5 fm. We investigate the origin of these large lengths and discuss their significance for the choice of momentum cutoff scales in effective field theory and universality in many-body Fermi systems.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2012

Benchmark calculations for elastic fermion-dimer scattering

We present continuum and lattice calculations for elastic scattering between a fermion and a bound dimer in the shallow binding limit. For the continuum calculation we use the Skorniakov-Ter-Martirosian (STM) integral equation to determine the scattering length and effective range parameter to high precision. For the lattice calculation we use the finite-volume method of Lüscher. We take into account topological finite-volume corrections to the dimer binding energy which depend on the momentum of the dimer. After subtracting these effects, we find from the lattice calculation kappa a_fd = 1.174(9) and kappa r_fd = -0.029(13). These results agree well with the continuum values kappa a_fd = 1.17907(1) and kappa r_fd = -0.0383(3) obtained from the STM equation. We discuss applications to cold atomic Fermi gases, deuteron-neutron scattering in the spin-quartet channel, and lattice calculations of scattering for nuclei and hadronic molecules at finite volume.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2011

Topological phases for bound states moving in a finite volume

We show that bound states moving in a finite periodic volume have an energy correction which is topological in origin and universal in character. The topological volume corrections contain information about the number and mass of the constituents of the bound states. These results have broad applications to lattice calculations involving nucleons, nuclei, hadronic molecules, and cold atoms. We illustrate and verify the analytical results with several numerical lattice calculations.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2011

Non-relativistic bound states in a finite volume

We derive general results for the mass shift of bound states with angular momentum l >= 1 in a periodic cubic box in two and three spatial dimensions. Our results have applications to lattice simulations of hadronic molecules, halo nuclei, and Feshbach molecules. The sign of the mass shift can be related to the symmetry properties of the state under consideration. We verify our analytical results with explicit numerical calculations. Moreover, we comment on the relations connecting the effective range parameter, the binding momentum of a given state and the asymptotic normalization coefficient of the corresponding wave function. We give explicit expressions for this relation in the shallow binding limit.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2011

Volume Dependence of Bound States with Angular Momentum

We derive general results for the mass shift of bound states with angular momentum l >= 1 in a finite periodic volume. Our results have direct applications to lattice simulations of hadronic molecules as well as atomic nuclei. While the binding of S-wave bound states increases at finite volume, we show that the binding of P-wave bound states decreases. The mass shift for D-wave bound states as well as higher partial waves depends on the representation of the cubic rotation group. Nevertheless, the multiplet-averaged mass shift for any angular momentum l can be expressed in a simple form, and the sign of the shift alternates for even and odd l. We verify our analytical results with explicit numerical calculations. We also show numerically that similar volume corrections appear in three-body bound states.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2011

Precision benchmark calculations for four particles at unitarity

The unitarity limit describes interacting particles where the range of the interaction is zero and the scattering length is infinite. We present precision benchmark calculations for two-component fermions at unitarity using three different ab initio methods: Hamiltonian lattice formalism using iterated eigenvector methods, Euclidean lattice formalism with auxiliary-field projection Monte Carlo, and continuum diffusion Monte Carlo with fixed and released nodes. We have calculated the ground state energy of the unpolarized four-particle system in a periodic cube as a dimensionless fraction of the ground state energy for the non-interacting system. We obtain values 0.211(2) and 0.210(2) using two different Hamiltonian lattice representations, 0.206(9) using Euclidean lattice, and an upper bound of 0.212(2) from fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo. Released-node calculations starting from the fixed-node result yield a decrease of less than 0.002 over a propagation of 0.4/E_F in Euclidean time, where E_F is the Fermi energy. We find good agreement among all three ab initio methods.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Ab initio calculation of the Hoyle state

The Hoyle state plays a crucial role in the hydrogen burning of stars heavier than our sun and in the production of carbon and other elements necessary for life. This excited state of the carbon-12 nucleus was postulated by Hoyle [1] as a necessary ingredient for the fusion of three alpha particles to produce carbon at stellar temperatures. Although the Hoyle state was seen experimentally more than a half century ago [2,3], nuclear theorists have not yet uncovered the nature of this state from first principles. In this letter we report the first ab initio calculation of the low-lying states of carbon-12 using supercomputer lattice simulations and a theoretical framework known as effective field theory. In addition to the ground state and excited spin-2 state, we find a resonance at -85(3) MeV with all of the properties of the Hoyle state and in agreement with the experimentally observed energy. These lattice simulations provide insight into the structure of this unique state and new clues as to the amount of fine-tuning needed in nature for the production of carbon in stars.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2011

How quantum bound states bounce and the structure it reveals

We investigate how quantum bound states bounce from a hard surface. Our analysis has applications to ab initio calculations of nuclear structure and elastic deformation, energy levels of excitons in semiconductor quantum dots and wells, and cold atomic few-body systems on optical lattices with sharp boundaries. We develop the general theory of elastic reflection for a composite body from a hard wall. On the numerical side we present ab initio calculations for the compression of alpha particles and universal results for two-body states. On the analytical side we derive a universal effective potential that gives the reflection scattering length for shallow two-body states.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2010

Lattice calculations for A=3,4,6,12 nuclei using chiral effective field theory

We present lattice calculations for the ground state energies of tritium, helium-3, helium-4, lithium-6, and carbon-12 nuclei. Our results were previously summarized in a letter publication. This paper provides full details of the calculations. We include isospin-breaking, Coulomb effects, and interactions up to next-to-next-to-leading order in chiral effective field theory.

nucl-th↗