No Arabic abstract
We show that chiral symmetry and gauge invariance enforce relations between the short-distance physics that occurs in a number of electroweak and pionic reactions on light nuclei. Within chiral perturbation theory this is manifested via the appearance of the same axial isovector two-body contact term in pi- d -> n n gamma, p-wave pion production in NN collisions, tritium beta decay, pp fusion, nu d scattering, and the hep reaction. Using a Gamow-Teller matrix element obtained from calculations of pp fusion as input we compute the neutron spectrum obtained in pi- d -> n n gamma. With the short-distance physics in this process controlled from p p -> d e+ nu_e the theoretical uncertainty in the nn scattering length extracted from pi- d -> n n gamma is reduced by a factor larger than three, to <~0.05 fm.
We solve three-nucleon Faddeev equations with nucleon-nucleon and three-nucleon forces derived consistently in the framework of chiral perturbation theory at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion. In this first investigation we include only matrix elements of the three-nucleon force for partial waves with the total two-nucleon (three-nucleon) angular momenta up to 3 (5/2). Low-energy neutron-deuteron elastic scattering and deuteron breakup reaction are studied. Emphasis is put on Ay puzzle in elastic scattering and cross sections in symmetric-space-star and neutron-neutron quasi-free-scattering breakup configurations, for which large discrepancies between data and theory have been reported.
Background: Modern ab initio theory combined with high-quality nucleon-nucleon (NN) and three-nucleon (3N) interactions from chiral effective field theory (EFT) can provide a predictive description of low-energy light-nuclei reactions relevant for astrophysics and fusion-energy applications. However, the high cost of computations has so far impeded a complete analysis of the uncertainty budget of such calculations. Purpose: Starting from NN potentials up to fifth order (N4LO) combined with leading-order 3N forces, we study how the order-by-order convergence of the chiral expansion and confidence intervals for the 3N contact and contact-plus-one-pion-exchange low-energy constants (cE and cD) contribute to the overall uncertainty budget of many-body calculations of neutron-He elastic scattering. Methods: We compute structure and reaction observables for three-, four- and five-nucleon systems within the ab initio frameworks of the no-core shell model an no-core shell model with continuum. Using a small set of design runs, we construct a Gaussian process model (GPM) that acts as a statistical emulator for the theory. With this, we gain insight into how uncertainties in the 3N low-energy constants propagate throughout the calculation and determine the Bayesian posterior distribution of these parameters with Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo.
The existence of superfluidity of the neutron component in the core of a neutron star, associated specifically with triplet $P-$wave pairing, is currently an open question that is central to interpretation of the observed cooling curves and other neutron-star observables. Ab initio theoretical calculations aimed at resolving this issue face unique challenges in the relevant high-density domain, which reaches beyond the saturation density of symmetrical nuclear matter. These issues include uncertainties in the three-nucleon (3N) interaction and in the effects of strong short-range correlations -- and more generally of in-medium modification of nucleonic self-energies and interactions. A survey of existing solutions to the gap equations in the triplet channel shows that the separate or combined impacts of 3N forces, coupled channels, and mass renormalization range from moderate to strong to devastating, thus motivating a detailed analysis of the competing effects. In the present work we track the effects of the 3N force and in-medium modifications in the representative case of the $^3P_2$ channel, based on the Argonne V18 two-nucleon (2N) interaction supplemented by 3N interactions of the Urbana IX family. Sensitivity of the results to the input interaction is clearly demonstrated, while consistency issues arise with respect to the simultaneous treatment of 3N forces and in-medium effects. We consider this pilot study as the first step towards a systematic and comprehensive exploration of coupled-channel $^3P F_2$ pairing using a broad range of 2N and 3N interactions from the current generation of refined semi-phenomenological models and models derived from chiral effective field theory.
We have performed the first high precision measurement of the coherent neutron scattering length of deuterium in a pure sample using neutron interferometry. We find b_nd = (6.665 +/- 0.004) fm in agreement with the world average of previous measurements using different techniques, b_nd = (6.6730 +/- 0.0045) fm. We compare the new world average for the nd coherent scattering length b_nd = (6.669 +/- 0.003) fm to calculations of the doublet and quartet scattering lengths from several modern nucleon-nucleon potential models with three-nucleon force (3NF) additions and show that almost all theories are in serious disagreement with experiment. This comparison is a more stringent test of the models than past comparisons with the less precisely-determined nuclear doublet scattering length of a_nd = (0.65 +/- 0.04) fm.
We study excited-state properties of neutron-rich calcium isotopes based on chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions. We first discuss the details of our many-body framework, investigate convergence properties, and for two-nucleon interactions benchmark against coupled-cluster calculations. We then focus on the spectroscopy of 47-56Ca, finding that with both 3N forces and an extended pfg9/2 valence space, we obtain a good level of agreement with experiment. We also study electromagnetic transitions and find that experimental data are well described by our calculations. In addition, we provide predictions for unexplored properties of neutron-rich calcium isotopes.