arXiv subjects

Denis Lacroix

Publications and source records attributed to Denis Lacroix.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Pairing and specific heat in hot nuclei

The thermodynamics of pairing phase-transition in nuclei is studied in the canonical ensemble and treating the pairing correlations in a finite-temperature variation after projection BCS approach (FT-VAP). Due to the restoration of particle number conservation, the pairing gap and the specific heat calculated in the FT-VAP approach vary smoothly with the temperature, indicating a gradual transition from the superfluid to the normal phase, as expected in finite systems. We have checked that the predictions of the FT-VAP approach are very accurate when compared to the results obtained by an exact diagonalization of the pairing Hamiltonian. The influence of pairing correlations on specific heat is analysed for the isotopes $^{161,162}$Dy and $^{171,172}$Yb. It is shown that the FT-VAP approach, applied with a level density provided by mean field calculations and supplemented, at high energies, by the level density of the back-shifted Fermi gas model, can approximate reasonably well the main properties of specific heat extracted from experimental data. However, the detailed shape of the calculated specific heat is rather sensitive to the assumption made for the mean field.

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arXiv2013

Systematic of isovector and isoscalar giant quadrupole resonances in normal and superfluid spherical nuclei

The isoscalar (IS) and isovector (IV) quadrupole responses of nuclei are systematically investigated using the time-dependent Skyrme Energy Density Functional including pairing in the BCS approximation. Using two different Skyrme functionals, Sly4 and SkM*, respectively 263 and 304 nuclei have been found to be spherical along the nuclear charts. The time-dependent evolution of these nuclei has been systematically performed giving access to their quadrupole responses. It is shown that the mean-energy of the collective high energy state globally reproduces the experimental IS and IV collective energy but fails to reproduce their lifetimes. It is found that the mean collective energy depends rather significantly on the functional used in the mean-field channel. Pairing by competing with parity effects can slightly affect the collective response around magic numbers and induces a reduction of the collective energy compared to the average trend. Low-lying states, that can only be considered if pairing is included, are investigated. While the approach provides a fair estimate of the low lying state energy, it strongly underestimates the transition rate $B(E2)$. Finally, the possibility to access to the density dependence of the symmetry energy through parallel measurements of both the IS- and IV-GQR is discussed.

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arXiv2013

Quantal corrections to mean-field dynamics including pairing

Extending the stochastic mean-field model by including pairing, an approach is proposed for describing evolutions of complex many-body systems in terms of an ensemble of Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock Bogoliubov trajectories which is determined by incorporating fluctuations in the initial state. Non-linear evolution of the initial fluctuations provides an approximate description of quantal correlations and fluctuations of collective observables. Since the initial-state fluctuations break the particle-number symmetry, the dynamical description in which pairing correlations play a crucial role is greatly improved as compare to the mean-field evolution. The approach is illustrated for a system of particles governed by a pairing Hamiltonian.

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arXiv2012

Effect of pairing on one- and two-nucleon transfer below the Coulomb barrier: a time-dependent microscopic description

The effect of pairing correlation on transfer reaction below the Coulomb barrier is investigated qualitatively and quantitatively using a simplified version of the Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock + BCS approach. The effect of particle number symmetry breaking on the description of reaction and dedicated methods to extract one and two-nucleon transfer probabilities (P_{1n} and P_{2n}) in a particle number symmetry breaking approach are discussed. Influence of pairing is systematically investigated in the ^{40}Ca+ ^{40,42,44,46,48,50}Ca reactions. A strong enhancement of the two-particle transfer probabilities due to initial pairing correlations is observed. This enhancement induces an increase of the ratio of probabilities P_{2n} / (P_{1n})^2 compared to the case with no pairing. It is shown that this ratio increases strongly as the center of mass energy decreases with a value that could be larger than ten in the deep sub-barrier regime. An analysis of the pair transfer sensitivity to the type of pairing interaction, namely surface, mixed or volume, used in the theory is made. It is found that the pair transfer is globally insensitive to the type of force and mainly depends on the pairing interaction strength.

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arXiv2012

On the description of two-particle transfer in superfluid systems

Exact results of pair transfer probabilities for the Richardson model with equidistant or random level spacing are presented. The results are then compared either to particle-particle random phase approximation (ppRPA) in the normal phase or quasi-particle random phase approximation (QRPA) in the superfluid phase. We show that both ppRPA and QRPA are globally well reproducing the exact case although some differences are seen in the superfluid case. In particular the QRPA overestimates the pair transfer probabilities to excited states in the vicinity of the normal-superfluid phase transition, which might explain the difficult in detecting collective pairing phenomena as for example the Giant Pairing Vibration. The shortcoming of QRPA can be traced back to the breaking of particle number that is used to incorporate pairing. A method, based on direct diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in the space of two quasi-particle projected onto good particle number is shown to improve the description of pair transfer probabilities in superfluid systems.

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arXiv2012

Large Amplitude motion with a stochastic mean-field approach

In the stochastic mean-field approach, an ensemble of initial conditions is considered to incorporate correlations beyond the mean-field. Then each starting pont is propagated separately using the Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock equation of motion. This approach provides a rather simple tool to better describe fluctuations compared to the standard TDHF. Several illustrations are presented showing that this theory can be rather effective to treat the dynamics close to a quantum phase transition. Applications to fusion and transfer reactions demonstrate the great improvement in the description of mass dispersion.

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arXiv2012

Projected Quasi-particle Perturbation theory

The BCS and/or HFB theories are extended by treating the effect of four quasi-particle states perturbatively. The approach is tested on the pairing hamiltonian, showing that it combines the advantage of standard perturbation theory valid at low pairing strength and of non-perturbative approaches breaking particle number valid at higher pairing strength. Including the restoration of particle number, further improves the description of pairing correlation. In the presented test, the agreement between the exact solution and the combined perturbative + projection is almost perfect. The proposed method scales friendly when the number of particles increases and provides a simple alternative to other more complicated approaches.

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arXiv2012

Beyond mean-field calculation for pairing correlation

The recently proposed Symmetry-Conserving Energy Density Functional approach [G. Hupin, D. Lacroix and M. Bender, Phys. Rev. C84, 014309 (2011)] is applied to perform Variation After Projection onto good particle number using Skyrme interaction, including density dependent terms. We present a systematic study of the Kr and Sn isotopic chains. This approach leads to non-zero pairing in magic nuclei and a global enhancement of the pairing gap compared to the original theory that breaks the particle number symmetry. The need to consistently readjust the pairing effective interaction strength is discussed.

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arXiv2012

On the application of symmetry breaking and its restoration to treat pairing correlation in finite nuclei

An alternative approach to symmetry restoration within Energy Density Functional, the Symmetry-Conserving EDF is discussed. In this approach, the energy is directly written in terms of the degrees of freedom encoded in the one-, two-... body density matrices of the state having good quantum numbers. The SC-EDF framework is illustrated within Projection After and Before variation applied to particle number restoration.

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arXiv2012

Symmetry breaking and fluctuations within stochastic mean-field dynamics: importance of initial quantum fluctuations

Dynamics of spontaneous symmetry breaking and fluctuations in the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model are investigated in a stochastic mean-field approach. Different from the standard mean-field, in the stochastic approach, initial state fluctuations, are incorporated. In weak coupling, the approach perfectly reproduces the exact quantal dynamics. On the other hand, for increasing coupling strength, above the symmetry breaking threshold, the approach provides description of gross properties (i.e. time averaged behavior) of the exact quantal evolution.

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arXiv2012

Thermodynamics of small superconductors with fixed particle number

The Variation After Projection approach is applied for the first time to the pairing hamiltonian to describe the thermodynamics of small systems with fixed particle number. The minimization of the free energy is made by a direct diagonalization of the entropy. The Variation After Projection applied at finite temperature provides a perfect reproduction of the exact canonical properties of odd or even systems from very low to high temperature.

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arXiv2011

Beyond mean-field approach to heavy-ion reactions around the Coulomb barrier

Dissipation and fluctuations of one-body observables in heavy-ion reactions around the Coulomb barrier are investigated with a microscopic stochastic mean-field approach. By projecting the stochastic mean-field dynamics on a suitable collective path, transport coefficients associated with the relative distance between colliding nuclei and a fragment mass are extracted. Although microscopic mean-field approach is know to underestimate the variance of fragment mass distribution, the description of the variance is much improved by the stochastic mean-field method. While fluctuations are consistent with the empirical (semiclassical) analysis of the experimental data, concerning mean values of macroscopic variables the semiclassical description breaks down below the Coulomb barrier.

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arXiv2011

Functional approach for pairing in finite systems: How to define restoration of broken symmetries in Energy Density Functional theory ?

The Multi-Reference Energy Density Functional (MR-EDF) approach (also called configuration mixing or Generator Coordinate Method), that is commonly used to treat pairing in finite nuclei and project onto particle number, is re-analyzed. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the MR-EDF energy can be interpreted as a functional of the one-body density matrix of the projected state with good particle number. Based on this observation, we propose a new approach, called Symmetry-Conserving EDF (SC-EDF), where the breaking and restoration of symmetry are accounted for simultaneously. We show, that such an approach is free from pathologies recently observed in MR-EDF and can be used with a large flexibility on the density dependence of the functional.

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arXiv2011

On the formulation of functional theory for pairing with particle number restoration

The restoration of particle number within Energy Density Functional theory is analyzed. It is shown that the standard method based on configuration mixing leads to a functional of both the projected and non-projected densities. As an alternative that might be advantageous for mass models, nuclear dynamics and thermodynamics, we propose to formulate the functional in terms directly of the one-body and two-body density matrices of the state with good particle number. Our approach does not contain the pathologies recently observed when restoring the particle number in an Energy Density Functional framework based on transition density matrices and can eventually be applied with functionals having arbitrary density dependencies.

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arXiv2010

Description of Pairing correlation in Many-Body finite systems with density functional theory

Different steps leading to the new functional for pairing based on natural orbitals and occupancies proposed in ref. [D. Lacroix and G. Hupin, arXiv:1003.2860] are carefully analyzed. Properties of quasi-particle states projected onto good particle number are first reviewed. These properties are used (i) to prove the existence of such a functional (ii) to provide an explicit functional through a 1/N expansion starting from the BCS approach (iii) to give a compact form of the functional summing up all orders in the expansion. The functional is benchmarked in the case of the picked fence pairing Hamiltonian where even and odd systems, using blocking technique are studied, at various particle number and coupling strength, with uniform and random single-particle level spacing. In all cases, a very good agreement is found with a deviation inferior to 1% compared to the exact energy.

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arXiv2010

Density-matrix functionals for pairing in mesoscopic superconductors

A functional theory based on single-particle occupation numbers is developed for pairing. This functional, that generalizes the BCS approach, directly incorporates corrections due to particle number conservation. The functional is benchmarked with the pairing Hamiltonian and reproduces perfectly the energy for any particle number and coupling.

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arXiv2010

Density functional for pairing with particle number conservation

In this work, a new functional is introduced to treat pairing correlations in finite many-body systems. Guided by the projected BCS framework, the energy is written as a functional of occupation numbers. It is shown to generalize the BCS approach and to provide an alternative to Variation After Projection framework. Illustrations of the new approach are given for the pairing Hamiltonian for various particle numbers and coupling strengths. In all case, a very good agreement with the exact solution is found.

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arXiv2010

Stochastic Semi-Classical Description of Fusion at Near-Barrier Energies

Fusion reactions of heavy ions are investigated by employing a simple stochastic semi-classical model which includes the coupling between relative motion and low frequency collective surface modes of colliding ions similarly to the quantal coupled-channels description. The quantal effect enters into the calculation through the initial zero-point fluctuations of the surface vibrations. Good agreement with the result of coupled-channels calculations as well as data is obtained for the fusion cross sections of nickel isotopes. The internal excitations in non-fusing events as well as the fusion time are investigated.

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