Motivated by the fact that a polarized ${}^3$He nucleus behaves as an `effective neutron target, we examine manifestations of neutron electromagnetic polarizabilities in elastic Compton scattering from the Helium-3 nucleus. We calculate both unpolari
zed and double-polarization observables using chiral perturbation theory to next-to-leading order (${mathcal O}(e^2 Q)$) at energies, $omega leq m_{pi}$, where $m_{pi}$ is the pion mass. Our results show that the unpolarized differential cross section can be used to measure neutron electric and magnetic polarizabilities, while two double-polarization observables are sensitive to different linear combinations of the four neutron spin polarizabilities. [Note added in 2018] The qualitative conclusions and analytic formulae presented in this paper are correct, but several of the numerical results are wrong: see the erratum posted as arXiv:1804.01206 for further details. A full suite of corrected numerical results for cross sections and asymmetries can be found in Margaryan et al., arXiv:1804.00956. They can also be obtained as an interactive Mathematica notebook by emailing [email protected].
We use Lee-Suzuki mappings and related techniques to construct effective two-body p-shell interactions and neutrinoless double-beta operators that exactly reproduce the results of large no-core-shell-model calculations of double-beta decay in nuclei
with mass number A=6. We then apply the effective operators to the decay of nuclei with A=7, 8, and 10, again comparing with no-core calculations in much larger spaces. The results with the effective two-body operators are generally good. In some cases, however, they differ non-negligibly from the full no-core results, suggesting that three-body corrections to the decay operator in heavier nuclei may be important. An application of our procedure and related ideas to fp-shell nuclei such as 76Ge should be feasible within coupled-cluster theory.
Compton scattering on light nuclei ($A=2,3$) has emerged as an effective avenue to search for signatures of neutron polarizabilities, both spin--independent and spin--dependent ones. In this discussion I will focus on the theoretical aspect of Compto
n scattering on light nuclei; giving first a brief overview and therafter concentrating on our Compton scattering calculations based on Chiral effective theory at energies of the order of pion mass. These elastic $gamma$d and $gamma$He-3 calculations include nucleons, pions as the basic degrees of freedom. I will also discuss $gamma$d results where the $Delta$-isobar has been included explicitly. Our results on unpolarized and polarization observables suggest that a combination of experiments and further theoretical efforts will provide an extraction of the neutron polarizabilities.
We present recent results on elastic deuteron Compton scattering calculations for polarised beans and targets up to next-to-leading order within Chiral Effective Field Theory in the Small Scale Expansion variant to implement a dynamical Delta(1232) d
egree of freedom. A simple power-counting argument discloses that np-intermediate rescattering states must be explicitly included at leading order already. This automatically results in the correct Thomson limit and guarantees current conservation. In view of ongoing effort at MAXlab, proposals at HIGS and plans at MAMI, we address in detail single- and double-polarised observables with linearly or circularly polarised photons on both unpolarised and vector-polarised deuterons. Our results indicate that several of the polarisation observables can be instrumental to extract not only spin-independent nucleon polarisabilities, but also the so-far practically un-determined spin-dependent polarisabilities which parameterise the stiffness of the nucleon spin in external electro-magnetic fields. Amongst the questions addressed are: convergence of the expansion for including the Delta, the role of the np-rescattering contributions, and sensitivity to the deuteron wave function. An interactive Mathematica 7.0 notebook of these findings is available from the authors.
A systematic connection between QCD and nuclear few- and many-body properties in the form of the Effective Field Theory without pions is applied to $Ale 6$ nuclei to determine its range of applicability. We present results at next-to-leading order fo
r the Tjon correlation and for a correlation between the singlet S-wave $^3$He-neutron scattering length and the triton binding energy. In the A=6 sector we performed leading order calculations for the binding energy and the charge and matter radii of the halo nucleus $^6$He. Also at leading order, the doublet S-wave 4-He-neutron phase shifts are compared with R-matrix data. These analysis provide evidence for a sufficiently fast convergence of the effective field theory, in particular, our results in $Ale 4$ predict an expansion parameter of about 1/3, and they converge to data within the predicted uncertainty band at this order. A properly adjusted three-body contact force which we include together with the Coulomb interaction in all calculations is found to correctly renormalize the pion-less theory at leading- and next-to-leading order, i.e. the power counting does not require four-body forces at the respective order.
The Effective Field Theory without pions at next-to-leading order is used to analyze universal bound state and scattering properties of the 3- and 4-nucleon system. Results of a variety of phase shift equivalent nuclear potentials are presented for b
ound state properties of 3H and 4He, and for the singlet S-wave 3He-neutron scattering length a_0(3He-n). The calculations are performed with the Refined Resonating Group Method and include a full treatment of the Coulomb interaction and the leading-order 3-nucleon interaction. The results compare favorably with data and values from AV18(+UIX) model calculations. A new correlation between a_0(3He-n) and the 3H binding energy is found. Furthermore, we confirm at next-to-leading order the correlations, already found at leading-order, between the 3H binding energy and the 3H charge radius, and the Tjon line. With the 3H binding energy as input, we get predictions of the Effective Field Theory without pions at next-to-leading order for the root mean square charge radius of 3H of (1.6pm 0.2) fm, for the 4He binding energy of (28pm 2.5) MeV, and for Re(a_0(3He-n)) of (7.5pm 0.6)fm. Including the Coulomb interaction, the splitting in binding energy between 3H and 3He is found to be (0.66pm 0.03) MeV. The discrepancy to data of (0.10mp 0.03) MeV is model independently attributed to higher order charge independence breaking interactions. We also demonstrate that different results for the same observable stem from higher order effects, and carefully assess that numerical uncertainties are negligible. Our results demonstrate the convergence and usefulness of the pion-less theory at next-to-leading order in the 4He channel. We conclude that no 4-nucleon interaction is needed to renormalize the theory at next-to-leading order in the 4-nucleon sector.
We use nucleon-nucleon phase shifts obtained from experimental data, together with the chiral expansion for the long-distance part of the NN interaction, to obtain information about the short-distance piece of the NN potential that is at work in the
1S0 channel. We find that if the scale R that defines the separation between long- and short- distance is chosen to be lsim 1.8 fm then the energy dependence produced by short-distance dynamics is well approximated by a two-term polynomial for Tlab < 200 MeV. We also find that a quantitative description of NN dynamics is possible, at least in this channel, if one treats the long-distance parts of the chiral NN potential in perturbation theory. However, in order to achieve this we have to choose a separation scale R that is larger than 1.0 fm.
