arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Nir Barnea.
We present calculations of the nuclear structure corrections to the Lamb shift in light muonic atoms, using state-of-the-art nuclear potentials. We outline updated results on finite nucleon size contributions.
Using the zero-range model, it was demonstrated recently that Levinger's quasi-deuteron model can be utilized to extract the nuclear neutron-proton contact. Going beyond the zero-range approximation and considering the full nuclear contact formalism, we rederive here the quasi-deuteron model for the nuclear photoabsorption cross-section and utilize it to establish relations and constrains for the general contact matrix. We also define and demonstrate the importance of the diagonalized nuclear contacts, which can be also relevant to further applications of the nuclear contacts.
The Fock expansion [1] describes the $S$-state wave function of the two-electron atomic system in the vicinity of the triple coalescence point. The present work constitutes the additional appendix to our paper [2] devoted to refinement and further development of calculation of the angular Fock coefficients of the Fock expansion. We derive the explicit analytic expressions for the complicated subcomponents $ψ_{4,1}^{(2d)}$ and $ψ_{3,0}^{(2c)}$ of the angular Fock coefficients. An unusual method of using the Wolfram Mathematica was applied.
We present calculations of nuclear structure effects to the Lamb shift in light muonic atoms. We adopt a modern ab-initio approach by combining state-of-the-art nuclear potentials with the hyperspherical harmonics method. Our calculations are instrumental to the determination of nuclear charge radii in the Lamb shift measurements, which will shed light on the proton radius puzzle.
We review the Lorentz integral transform coupled-cluster method for the calculation of the electric dipole polarizability. We benchmark our results with exact hyperspherical harmonics calculations for 4He and then we move to a heavier nucleus studying 16O. We observe that the implemented chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order underestimates the electric dipole polarizability.
The large nucleon-nucleon scattering length, and the isospin approximate symmetry, are low energy properties of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). These entail correlations in the binding energies of light nuclei, e.g., the A=3 iso-multiplet, and Tjon's correlation between the binding energy of three and four body nuclei. Using a new representation of these, we establish that they translate into a correlation between different short-range contributions to three body forces in chiral effective field theory of low-energy nuclear physics. We demonstrate that these correlations should be taken into account in order to avoid fine-tuning in the calibration of three body forces. We relate this to the role of correlations in uncertainty quantification of non-renormalizable effective field theories of the nuclear regime. In addition, we show that correlations can be useful in assessing the importance of forces induced by renormalization group (RG) transformations. We give numerical evidence that such RG transformations can be represented effectively by adding a constant to the pure three nucleon contact low energy constant $c_E$.
In view of recent experiments in ultracold atomic systems, the photoassociation of Efimov trimers, composed of three identical bosons, is studied utilizing the multipole expansion. We study both the normal hierarchy case, where one-body current is dominant, and the strong hierarchy case, relevant for photoassociation in ultracold atoms, where two-body current is dominant. For identical particles in the normal hierarchy case, the leading contribution comes from the r^2 s-mode operator and from the quadrupole d-mode operator. The s-mode reaction is found to be dominant at low temperature, while as the temperature increases the d-mode becomes as significant. For the strong hierarchy case, the leading contribution comes from a 2-body s-wave δ operator. In both cases log periodic oscillations are found in the cross section. For large but finite scattering length the amplitude of the oscillations becomes larger in comparison to infinite scattering length case. We apply our theory to photoassociation of 7Li ultracold atoms and show a good fit to the available experimental results.
An effective field theory is used to describe light nuclei, calculated from quantum chromodynamics on a lattice at unphysically large pion masses. The theory is calibrated at leading order to two available data sets on two- and three-body nuclei for two pion masses. At those pion masses we predict the quartet and doublet neutron-deuteron scattering lengths, and the alpha-particle binding energy. For $m_π=510~$MeV we obtain, respectively, $^4a_{\rm nD}=2.3\pm 1.3~$fm, $^2a_{\rm nD}=2.2\pm 2.1~$fm, and $B_α^{}=35\pm 22~$MeV, while for $m_π=805~$MeV $^4a_{\rm nD}=1.6\pm 1.3~$fm, $^2a_{\rm nD}=0.62\pm 1.0~$fm, and $B_α^{}=94\pm 45~$MeV are found. Phillips- and Tjon-like correlations to the triton binding energy are established. Higher-order effects on the respective correlation bands are found insensitive to the pion mass. As a benchmark, we present results for the physical pion mass, using experimental two-body scattering lengths and the triton binding energy as input. Hints of subtle changes in the structure of the triton and alpha particle are discussed.
The angular coefficients $ψ_{k,p}(α,θ)$ of the Fock expansion characterizing the S-state wave function of the two-electron atomic system, are calculated in hyperspherical angular coordinates $α$ and $θ$. To solve the problem the Fock recurrence relations separated into the independent individual equations associated with definite power $j$ of the nucleus charge $Z$, are applied. The "pure" $j$-components of the angular Fock coefficients, orthogonal to of the hyperspherical harmonics $Y_{kl}$, are found for even values of $k$. To this end, the specific coupling equation is proposed and applied. Effective techniques for solving the individual equations with simplest nonseparable and separable right-hand sides are proposed. Some mistakes/misprints made earlier in representations of $ψ_{2,0}$, were noted and corrected. All $j$-components of $ψ_{4,1}$ and the majority of components and subcomponents of $ψ_{3,0}$ are calculated and presented for the first time. All calculations were carried out with the help of the Wolfram \emph{Mathematica}.
The general nuclear contact matrices are defined, taking into consideration all partial waves and finite-range interactions, extending Tan's work for the zero range model. The properties of these matrices are discussed and the relations between the contacts and the one-nucleon and two-nucleon momentum distributions are derived. Using these relations, a new asymptotic connection between the one-nucleon and two-nucleon momentum distributions, describing the two-body short-range correlations in nuclei, is obtained. Using available numerical data, we extract few connections between the different contacts and verify their relations to the momentum distributions. The numerical data also allows us to identify the main nucleon momentum range affected by two-body short-range correlations. Utilizing these relations and the numerical data, we also verify a previous independent prediction connecting between the Levinger constant and the contacts. This work provides an important indication for the relevance of the contact formalism to nuclear systems, and should open the path for revealing more useful relations between the contacts and interesting quantities of nuclei and nuclear matter.
The nuclear neutron-proton contact is introduced, generalizing Tan's work, and evaluated from medium energy nuclear photodisintegration experiments. To this end we reformulate the quasi-deuteron model of nuclear photodisintegration and establish the bridge between the Levinger constant and the contact. Using experimental evaluations of Levinger's constant we extract the value of the neutron-proton contact in finite nuclei and in symmetric nuclear matter. Assuming isospin symmetry we propose to evaluate the neutron-neutron contact through measurement of photonuclear spin correlated neutron-proton pairs.
Correct treatment of subthreshold Kbar-N dynamics is mandatory in kaonic-atom and Kbar-nuclear bound-state calculations, as demonstrated by using in-medium chirally-based models of Kbar-N interactions. Recent studies of kaonic-atom data reveal appreciable multi-nucleon contributions. Kbar-nuclear widths larger than 50 MeV are anticipated.
We calculate the nuclear structure corrections to the Lamb shift in muonic deuterium by using state-of-the-art nucleon-nucleon potentials derived from chiral effective field theory. Our calculations complement previous theoretical work obtained from phenomenological potentials and the zero range approximation. The study of the chiral convergence order-by-order and the dependence on cutoff variations allows us to improve the estimates on the nuclear structure corrections and the theoretical uncertainty coming from nuclear potentials. This will enter the determination of the nuclear radius from ongoing muonic deuterium experiments at PSI.
Energy-dependent sum rules are useful tools in many fields of physics. In nuclear physics, they typically involve an integration of the response function over the nuclear spectrum with a weight function composed of integer powers of the energy. More complicated weight functions are also encountered, e.g., in nuclear polarization corrections of atomic spectra. Using the Lorentz integral transform method and the Lanczos algorithm, we derive a computationally efficient technique for evaluating such sum rules that avoids the explicit calculation of both the continuum states and the response function itself. Our numerical results for electric dipole sum rules of the Helium-4 nucleus with various energy-dependent weights show rapid convergence with respect to the number of Lanczos steps. This demonstrates the usefulness of the method in a variety of electroweak reactions.
The isoscalar monopole excitation of 4He is studied within a few-body ab initio approach. We consider the transition density to the low-lying and narrow 0+ resonance, as well as various sum rules and the strength energy distribution itself at different momentum transfers q. Realistic nuclear forces of chiral and phenomenological nature are employed. Various indications for a collective breathing mode are found: i) the specific shape of the transition density, ii) the high degree of exhaustion of the non-energy-weighted sum rule at low q and iii) the complete dominance of the resonance peak in the excitation spectrum. For the incompressibility K of the alpha-particle values between 20 and 30 MeV are found.
The role played by subthreshold meson-baryon dynamics is demonstrated in kaonic-atom, Kbar-nuclear and eta-nuclear bound-state calculations within in-medium models of Kbar-N and eta-N interactions. New analyses of kaonic atom data reveal appreciable multi-nucleon contributions. Calculations of eta-nuclear bound states show, in particular, that the eta-N scattering length is not a useful indicator of whether or not eta mesons bind in nuclei nor of the widths anticipated for such states.
Considering one-body and two-body currents, we study the photoassociation and photodissociation of universal bosonic trimers. Analyzing the relative importance of these currents we identify two physical scenarios (i) Normal hierarchy, where naive power counting holds and the one-body current dominates, and (ii) Strong hierarchy, where the one-body current is suppressed. For both scenarios we observe that at the high frequency tail, the response function exhibits log periodic oscillations in transition to or from any continuum state regardless of the reaction partial wave channel. In contrast, near threshold log periodic oscillations appear only in the leading $s$-wave components. These oscillations are the fingerprints of universal Efimov physics. We discuss the relevance of this effect to contemporary experiments in ultracold atoms.
The two-electron problem for the helium-like atom/ions in $S$-state is considered. The basis containing the integer powers of $\ln r$, where $r$ is a radial variable of the Fock expansion, is studied. In this basis, the analytic expressions for the matrix elements of the corresponding Hamiltonian are presented. These expressions include only special functions presented by the built-in $Mathematica$ codes, what enables very fast and accurate computation of the matrix elements. The decisive contribution of the correct logarithmic terms to the behavior of the two-electron wave function in the vicinity of the triple-coalescence point is reaffirmed.