arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Hiroyuki Sagawa.
We summarize the recent progress on the determination of the charge symmetry breaking term of nuclear energy density functionals. We point out that the strength of the term determined theoretically is remarkably smaller than that determined phenomenologically, which is still an open question.
Both the Coulomb interaction and isospin symmetry breaking (ISB) parts of the nuclear interaction break the isospin symmetry in atomic nuclei. Effects of these two kinds of interaction on properties of atomic nuclei, especially, the mass difference of mirror nuclei and the neutron-skin thickness of $ N = Z $ and $ N \ne Z $ nuclei, are discussed. It is found that corrections to the Hartree-Fock-Slater approximation for the Coulomb interaction negligibly affect the neutron-skin thickness, while the charge-symmetry breaking term originating from the strong interaction might affect it non-negligibly. According to our calculations, the ISB terms other than the Coulomb interaction affect the estimation of the density dependence of the symmetry energy, $ L $, by about $ 0 $--$ 12 \, \mathrm{MeV} $ using the correlation with the neutron-skin thickness.
Isotope dependences of charge radii, i.e., isotope shifts, calculated by the Skyrme Hartree-Fock, the relativistic mean-field, and the relativistic Hartree-Fock calculations are compared against the experimental data of magic and semimagic nuclei. It is found that the tensor interaction plays a role in reproducing the ``kink'' behavior, irregularity of isotope shifts at the neutron magic number, in the relativistic Hartree-Fock approach. With several Skyrme models, it is found that the kink behavior can be reproduced with the spin-orbit interaction having nonzero isovector channel. The single-particle orbitals near the Fermi energy are crucial to determine the kink size. The effects of the symmetry energy and the pairing interaction are also discussed in relation to the kink behavior.
The Telescope Array (TA) is the largest hybrid cosmic ray detector in the Northern Hemisphere, which observes primary particles in the energy range from 2 PeV to 100 EeV. The main TA detector consists of 507 plastic scintillation counters on a 1.2-km spacing square grid and fluorescence detectors at three stations overlooking the sky above the surface detector array. The TA Low energy Extension (TALE) hybrid detectors, which consists of ten fluorescence telescopes, and 80 infill surface detectors with 400-m and 600-m spacing, has continued to provide stable observations since its construction completion in 2018. The TAx4, a plan to quadruple the detection area of TA is also ongoing. About half of the planned detectors have been deployed, and the current TAx4 continues to operate stably as a hybrid detector. I review the present status of the TA experiment and the recent results on the cosmic-ray anisotropy, mass composition and energy spectrum.
The nuclear symmetry energy plays a key role in determining the equation of state (EoS) of dense, neutron-rich matter, which connects the atomic nuclei with the hot and dense matter in universe, thus has been the subject of intense investigations in laboratory experiments, astronomy observations and theories. Various probes have been proposed to constrain the symmetry energy and its density dependence. Currently, the extensive data yield already a good and consistent constraint to the symmetry energy ($E_\text{sym}(ρ)$) at saturation density, but do not yet give a consistent result of one critical EoS parameter, $L$, the density dependence of the symmetry energy. In this work, we report a new probe of $L$ at saturation density. A good linear correlation is found between $L$ and the charge changing cross section difference ($Δσ_\text{cc}$) of mirror nuclei $^{30}$Si-$^{30}$S for both the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock theory (SHF) and covariant (relativistic) density functionals (CDF). We found that the pairing effect for this mirror pair is essential to get a consistent correlation between $L$ and $Δσ_\text{cc}$ in both the SHF and CDF. Here, the cross sections are calculated on the same target and at the same energy using the zero-range optical-limit Glauber model. The linearity is found to be in the same precision as those found between $L$ and neutron skin thickness or proton radius difference.
We propose a new approach to determine the strength of the charge symmetry breaking (CSB) term in the framework of nuclear density functional theory. It is shown that once ab initio calculations are available including accurate description of isospin symmetry breaking terms in medium and heavy nuclei, the mass difference of mirror nuclei as well as the neutron-skin thickness of doubly-closed-shell nuclei can be used to constrain the strength of the CSB interaction with an uncertainty less than $ 6 \, \% $, separately from other isospin symmetry breaking forces. This method opens a new vista of ab initio nuclear energy density functionals.
Isospin symmetry breaking (ISB) effects in the charge radius difference $ΔR_{\rm ch}$ of mirror nuclei are studied using the test example of ${}^{48}$Ca and ${}^{48}$Ni. This choice allows for a transparent study of ISB contributions since paring and deformation effects, commonly required for the study of mirror nuclei, can be neglected in this specific pair. The connection of $ΔR_{\rm ch}$ with the nuclear Equation of State and the effect of ISB on such a relation are discussed according to an Energy Density Functional approach. We find that nuclear ISB effects may shift the estimated value for the symmetry energy slope parameter $L$ by more than 10 MeV while Coulomb corrections can be neglected. ISB effects on the ground-state energy and charge radii in mirror nuclei have been recently predicted by {\it ab initio} calculations to be relatively small, pointing to a negligible effect for the extraction of information on the nuclear EoS. These contrasting results call for a dedicated theoretical effort to solve this overarching problem that impacts not only the neutron skin thickness or the difference in mass and charge radii of mirror nuclei but also other observables such as the Isobaric Analog State energy.
We study the energy spectra of $Ξ$ hypernuclei $^{15}_Ξ$C and $^{12}_Ξ$Be with a relativistic mean field (RMF) model with meson exchange $ΞN$ interactions. The RMF parameters are optimized to reproduce the average energy of KINKA and IRRAWADDY events for the ground state and also the average energy of KISO and IBUKI events for the excited state in $^{15}_Ξ$C. The potential depth of average $ΞN$ mean field potential is found to be about $-12$ MeV in the nuclear matter limit. We further introduce the two-body $s$- and $p$-wave interactions between valence nucleons and $Ξ$ particle. We found that the $s$-wave interaction deduced from the HAL LQCD results is rather weak to obtain the energy difference between IRRAWADDY and KINKA events. The $p$-wave interaction is added and fitted to reproduce the energy difference. The resulting interaction together with the $s$-wave one gives a reasonable energy simultanously for the IBUKI event as an excited $Ξ_p$ state. The model is further applied to predict the energy spectrum of $^{12}_Ξ$Be.
We study the hypernuclei of C and B isotopes by Hartree-Fock model with Skyrme-type nucleon-nucleon and nucleon-hyperon interactions. The calculated $Λ$ binding energies agree well with the available experiment data. We found halo structure in the hyperon $1p$-state with extended wave function beyond nuclear surface in the light C and B isotopes. We also found the enhanced electric dipole transition between $1p$- and $1s$-hyperon states, which could be the evidence for this hyperon halo structure.
We report on the measurement of coherent radio emission from the electron beam sudden appearance at the Telescope Array Electron Light Source facility. This emission was detected by four independent radio detector setups sensitive to frequencies ranging from 50 MHz up to 12.5 GHz. We show that this phenomenon can be understood as a special case of coherent transition radiation by comparing the observed results with simulations. The in-nature application of this signal is given by the emission of cosmic ray or neutrino induced particle cascades traversing different media such as air, rock and ice.
The density-dependent relativistic Hartree-Fock (DDRHF) theory is extended to include $Δ$-isobars for the study of dense nuclear matter and neutron stars. To this end, we solve the Rarita-Schwinger equation for spin-3/2 particle. Both the direct and exchange terms of the $Δ$-isobars' self-energies are evaluated in details. In comparison with the relativistic mean field theory (Hartree approximation), a weaker parameter dependence is found for DDRHF. An early appearance of $Δ$-isobars is recognized at $ρ_B\sim0.27$fm$^{-3}$, comparable with that of hyperons. Also, we find that the $Δ$-isobars' softening of the equation of state is found to be mainly due to the reduced Fock contributions from the coupling of the isoscalar mesons, while the pion contributions are found negligibly small. We finally conclude that with typical parameter sets, neutron stars with $Δ$-isobars in their interiors could be as heavy as the two massive pulsars whose masses are precisely measured, with slightly smaller radii than normal neutron stars.
We discuss the isoscalar $T=0, S=1$ pairing correlation in the low-lying states of $^{102}{\rm Sb}={}^{100}{\rm Sn}+p+n$ nucleus. To this end, we employ ${\rm core}+p+n$ three-body model with the model space constructed by self-consistent mean-field calculations. The model is developed with both non-relativistic and relativistic effective interactions, the latter of which are found to be more realistic for the present case due to the pseudo-spin symmetry. It turns out that the $(L,S,T)=(0,1,0)$ pairing scheme is strongly hindered in $^{102}$Sb with the relativistic model because of the near degeneracy of the $g_{7/2}$ and $d_{5/2}$ orbitals in the valence space. This pair-breaking effect is clearly seen in the charge-exchange Gamow-Teller-type transitions rather than in the binding energies of $T=0$ and $T=1$ states.
The RPA monopole strength as well as the unperturbed particle-hole excitation strength is studied, in which the strength in the continuum is properly treated without discretizing unbound particle spectra. The model is the sef-consistent Hartree-Fock calculation and the RPA Green's function method with Skyrme interactions. Numerical examples are the Ni-isotopes, especially $^{68}_{28}$Ni$_{40}$, in which an experimental observation of low-lying socalled "pigmy resonance" with an appreciable amount of monopole strength at 12.9 $\pm$ 1.0 MeV was recently reported. In the present study it is concluded that sharp monopole peaks with the width of the order of 1 MeV can hardly be expected for $^{68}$Ni in that energy region. Instead, a broad shoulder of monopole strength consisting of neutron excitations to non-resonant one-particle states (called "threshold strength") with relatively low angular-momenta $(\ell, j)$ is obtained in the continuum energy region above the particle threshold, which is considerably lower than that of isoscalar giant monopole resonance. In the case of monopole excitations of $^{68}$Ni there are no unperturbed particle-hole states below 20 MeV, in which the particle expresses a neutron (or proton) resonant state. It is emphasized that in the theoretical estimate a proper treatment of the continuum is extremely important.
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 correlated diproton emission is a dominant process in the early stage of the two-proton emission. When the diproton correlation is absent, the sequential two-proton emission competes with the diproton emission, and the decay width is underestimated. These results suggest that the two-proton emission decays provide a good opportunity to probe the diproton correlation in proton-rich nuclei beyond the proton drip-line.
We study the superdeformed (SD) states and corresponding SD hypernuclei of Ar isotopes with the multidimensionally-constrained relativistic mean field (MDC-RMF) models which can accommodate various shape degree of freedom. %The hyperon-nucleon $σ$-$Λ$ and $ω$-$Λ$ interactions are introduced %in the same covariant framework. We found that the density profiles of SD states in Ar isotopes show a strong localization with a ring structure near the surface, while the central part of the density is dilute showing a hole structure. This localization of SD density induces an appreciable deformation in the hyperon wave function and results in a large overlap between the core and the hyperon in the SD hypernuclei of Ar isotopes. Then the $Λ$ separation energy of SD state becomes larger than that of normally deformed or spherical ground state. This feature is different from that found in other nuclei such as $^{32}$S, $^{56}$Ni, and $^{60}$Zn in which the $Λ$ separation energy of larger deformed state is smaller. In this context, the measurement of the $Λ$ separation energy may provide an important information on the localization of the density profile of SD states.
The response to the addition of a $Λ$ hyperon is investigated for the deformed states such as superdeformation in $^{41}_Λ$Ca, $^{46}_Λ$Sc and $^{48}_Λ$Sc. In the present study, we use the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) model. It is pointed out that many kinds of deformed bands appear in $^{45}$Sc and $^{47}$Sc. Especially, it is found that there exists superdeformed states in $^{45}$Sc. By the addition of a $Λ$ particle to $^{40}$Ca, $^{45}$Sc and $^{47}$Sc, it is predicted, for the first time, that the superdeformed states exist in the hypernuclei $^{41}_Λ$Ca and $^{46}_Λ$Sc. The manifestation of the dependence of the $Λ$-separation energy on nuclear deformation such as spherical, normal deformation and superdeformation is shown in the energy spectra of $^{41}_Λ$Ca, $^{46}_Λ$Sc and $^{48}_Λ$Sc hypernuclei.
The importance of the tensor force for nuclear structure has been recognized long ago. Recently, the interest for this topic has been revived by the study of the evolution of nuclear properties far from the stability line. However, in the context of the effective theories that describe medium-heavy nuclei, the role of the tensor force is still debated. This review focuses on ground-state properties like masses and deformation, on single-particle states, and on excited vibrational and rotational modes. The goal is to assess which properties, if any, can bring clear signatures of the tensor force within the mean-field or density functional theory framework. It will be concluded that, while evidences for a clear neutron-proton tensor force exist despite quantitative uncertainties, the role of the tensor force among equal particles is less well established.
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 simultaneous diproton decay.