Information on the size and shape of the neutron skin on $^{208}$Pb has been extracted from coherent pion photoproduction cross sections measured using the Crystal Ball together with the Glasgow tagger at the MAMI electron beam facility. On exploitation of an interpolated fit of a theoretical model to the measured cross sections the half-height radius and diffuseness of the neutron distribution are found to be 6.70$pm 0.03(stat)$ fm and 0.55$pm 0.01(stat)$$^{+0.02}_{-0.03}(sys)$ fm respectively, corresponding to a neutron skin thickness $Delta r_{np}$=0.15$pm 0.03(stat)$$^{+0.01}_{-0.03}(sys)$ fm. The results give the first successful extraction of a neutron skin with an electromagnetic probe and indicate the skin of $^{208}$Pb has a halo character. The measurement provides valuable new constraints on both the structure of nuclei and the equation of state for neutron-rich matter.
We argue that the reaction mechanism for the coherent pion production is not known with sufficient accuracy to determine the neutron radius of 208Pb to the claimed precision of 0.03 fm.
We present and discuss numerical predictions for the neutron density distribution of $^{208}$Pb using various non-relativistic and relativistic mean-field models for the nuclear structure. Our results are compared with the very recent pion photoproduction data from Mainz. The parity-violating asymmetry parameter for elastic electron scattering at the kinematics of the PREX experiment at JLab and the neutron skin thickness are compared with the available data. We consider also the dependence between the neutron skin and the parameters of the expansion of the symmetry energy.
The $^{208}$Pb($p$,$ngammabar p$) $^{207}$Pb reaction at a beam energy of 30 MeV has been used to excite the anti-analog of the giant dipole resonance (AGDR) and to measure its $gamma$-decay to the isobaric analog state in coincidence with proton decay of IAS. The energy of the transition has also been calculated with the self-consistent relativistic random-phase approximation (RRPA), and found to be linearly correlated to the predicted value of the neutron-skin thickness ($Delta R_{pn}$). By comparing the theoretical results with the measured transition energy, the value of 0.190 $pm$ 0.028 fm has been determined for $Delta R_{pn}$ of $^{208}$Pb, in agreement with previous experimental results. The AGDR excitation energy has also been used to calculate the symmetry energy at saturation ($J=32.7 pm 0.6$ MeV) and the slope of the symmetry energy ($L=49.7 pm 4.4$ MeV), resulting in more stringent constraints than most of the previous studies.
The reaction cross section $sigma_R$ is useful to determine the neutron radius $R_n$ as well as the matter radius $R_m$. The chiral (Kyushu) $g$-matrix folding model for $^{12}$C scattering on $^{9}$Be, $^{12}$C, $^{27}$Al targets was tested in the incident energy range of $30 lsim E_{rm in} lsim 400 $ MeV, and it is found that the model reliably reproduces the $sigma_R$ in $30 lsim E_{rm in} lsim 100 $ MeV and $250 lsim E_{rm in} lsim 400$ MeV. item[Aim] We determine $R_n$ and the neutron skin thickness $R_{rm skin}$ of ${}^{208}{rm Pb}$ by using high-quality $sigma_R$ data for the $p+{}^{208}{rm Pb}$ scattering in $30 leq E_{rm in} leq 100$ MeV. The theoretical model is the Kyushu $g$-matrix folding model with the densities calculated with Gongny-D1S HFB (GHFB) with the angular momentum projection (AMP). item[Results] The Kyushu $g$-matrix folding model with the GHFB+AMP densities underestimates $sigma_{rm R}$ in $30 leq E_{rm in} leq 100$~MeV only by a factor of 0.97. Since the proton radius $R_p$ calculated with GHFB+AMP agrees with the precise experimental data of 5.444 fm, the small deviation of the theoretical result from the data on $sigma_R$ allows us to scale the GHFB+AMP neutron density so as to reproduce the $sigma_R$ data. In $E_{rm in}$ = 30--100 MeV, the experimental $sigma_R$ data can be reproduced by assuming the neutron radius of ${}^{208}{rm Pb}$ as $R_n$ = $5.722 pm 0.035$ fm. item[Conclusion] The present result $R_{rm skin}$ = $0.278 pm 0.035$ fm is in good agreement with the recent PREX-II result of $r_{rm skin}$ = $0.283pm 0.071$ fm.
We report a precision measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry $A_{PV}$ in the elastic scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons from $^{208}$Pb. We measure $A_{PV}=550pm 16 {rm (stat)}pm 8 {rm (syst)}$ parts per billion, leading to an extraction of the neutral weak form factor $F_W(Q^2 = 0.00616 {rm GeV}^2) = 0.368 pm 0.013$. Combined with our previous measurement, the extracted neutron skin thickness is $R_n-R_p=0.283 pm 0.071$~fm. The result also yields the first significant direct measurement of the interior weak density of $^{208}$Pb: $rho^0_W = -0.0796pm0.0036 {rm (exp.)}pm0.0013 {rm (theo.)} {rm fm}^{-3}$ leading to the interior baryon density $rho^0_b = 0.1480pm0.0036 {rm (exp.)}pm0.0013 {rm (theo.)} {rm fm}^{-3}$. The measurement accurately constrains the density dependence of the symmetry energy of nuclear matter near saturation density, with implications for the size and composition of neutron stars.