We show that the quantum uncertainty principle puts some limits on the effectiveness of the antinucleon-nucleus annihilation at very low energies. This is caused by the fact that the realization a very effective short-distance reaction process implies information on the relative distance of the reacting particles. Some quantitative predictions are possible on this ground, including the approximate A-independence of antinucleon-nucleus annihilation rates.
Here a short synthesis is presented of the work, developed in the last two years by the Brescia Collaboration, on the phenomenology of antinucleon-nucleon and antinucleon-nucleus annihilation at small momenta (below 300 MeV/c in the laboratory), with special stress on the role of general principles.
We compare data of antineutron and antiproton annihilation cross sections on different targets at very low energies. After subtracting Coulomb effects, we observe that the ratio between the antineutron proton and antiproton proton annihilation cross sections is an oscillating function of the energy at momenta smaller 300 MeV/c. This nontrivial behavior is confirmed by the analysis of the relative number of antiproton-neutron and antiproton-proton annihilations in nuclei. We show that a part of the strong shadowing phenomena in antiproton-nucleus annihilations can be explained in terms of this oscillation, while a part requires different explainations.
We study effects of the Pauli principle on the potential energy of two-cluster systems. The object of the investigation is the lightest nuclei of p-shell with a dominant $alpha$-cluster channel. For this aim we construct matrix elements of two-cluster potential energy between cluster oscillator functions with and without full antisymmetrization. Eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the potential energy matrix are studied in detail. Eigenfunctions of the potential energy operator are presented in oscillator, coordinate and momentum spaces. We demonstrate that the Pauli principle affects more strongly the eigenfunctions than the eigenvalues of the matrix and leads to the formation of resonance and trapped states.
We present a detailed study of a continuum random phase approximation approach to quasielastic electron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus scattering. The formalism is validated by confronting ($e,e$) cross-section predictions with electron scattering data for the nuclear targets $^{12}$C, $^{16}$O, and $^{40}$Ca, in the kinematic region where quasielastic scattering is expected to dominate. We examine the longitudinal and transverse contributions to $^{12}$C($e,e$) and compare them with the available data. Further, we study the $^{12}$C($ u_{mu},mu^{-}$) cross sections relevant for accelerator-based neutrino-oscillation experiments. We pay special attention to low-energy excitations which can account for non-negligible contributions in measurements, and require a beyond-Fermi-gas formalism.
[Background] Meticulous modeling of neutrino-nucleus interactions is essential to achieve the unprecedented precision goals of present and future accelerator-based neutrino-oscillation experiments. [Purpose] Confront our calculations of charged-current quasielastic cross section with the measurements of MiniBooNE and T2K, and to quantitatively investigate the role of nuclear-structure effects, in particular, low-energy nuclear excitations in forward muon scattering. [Method] The model takes the mean-field (MF) approach as the starting point, and solves Hartree-Fock (HF) equations using a Skyrme (SkE2) nucleon-nucleon interaction. Long-range nuclear correlations are taken into account by means of the continuum random-phase approximation (CRPA) framework. [Results] We present our calculations on flux-folded double differential, and flux-unfolded total cross sections off $^{12}$C and compare them with MiniBooNE and (off-axis) T2K measurements. We discuss the importance of low-energy nuclear excitations for the forward bins. [Conclusions] The CRPA predictions describe the gross features of the measured cross sections. They underpredict the data (more in the neutrino than in the antineutrino case) because of the absence of processes beyond pure quasielastic scattering in our model. At very forward muon scattering, low-energy nuclear excitations ($omega < $ 50 MeV) account for nearly 50% of the flux-folded cross section.