The nuclear Coulomb sum rule in a relativistic model

The nuclear Coulomb sum rule is investigated in a relativistic quantum field theory of the nucleus based on baryons and mesons. First an effective, local, covariant, conserved electromagnetic current operator is constructed for the many-baryon system. It describes the electromagnetic structure of an isolated nucleon; the lowest-mass two-pion contribution to the spectral weight functions of the form factors is contained in it. The sum rule is then evaluated in a model based on baryons and neutral scalar and vector mesons. In the mean-field approximation (MFT) this model correctly describes the saturation properties of nuclear matter. The “one-body” term in the sum rule can be evaluated exactly through the use of the canonical anticommutation relations for the baryon field and the identification of conserved quantities. The remaining relativistic two-body contribution is evaluated in the MFT. Meson contributions to the sum rule at large momentum transfers $\text{q}\text{2k}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>F</mtext>}}\text{? 1}$ completely dominate anticipated static, short-range, two-nucleon correlation contributions to the non-relativistic Coulomb sum rule. One possible implication is that the nucleus must (at least) be considered as a dynamic system of mesons and baryons.     

η in the nuclear medium within a chiral unitary approach

The s-wave η self-energy in the nuclear medium is calculated in a chiral unitary approach. A coupled channel Bethe–Salpeter equation is solved to obtain the effective ηN interaction in the medium. The base model reproduces well the free space πN elastic and inelastic scattering at the ηN threshold or N^*(1535) region. The Pauli blocking on the nucleons, binding potentials for the baryons and self-energies of the mesons are incorporated, including the η self-energy in a self-consistent way. Our calculation predicts about −54−i29 MeV for the optical potential at normal nuclear matter for an η at threshold but also shows a strong energy dependence of the potential.     

Links between heavy ion and astrophysics

Heavy-ion experiments provide important data to test astrophysical models. The high-density equation of state can be probed in HI collisions and applied to the hot protoneutron star formed in core collapse supernovae. The parity radius experiment (PREX) aims to accurately measure the neutron radius of ²⁰⁸Pb with parity-violating electron scattering. This determines the pressure of neutron-rich matter and the density dependence of the symmetry energy. Competition between nuclear attraction and Coulomb repulsion can form exotic shapes called nuclear pasta in neutron star crusts and supernovae. This competition can be probed with multifragmentation HI reactions. We use large-scale semiclassical simulations to study nonuniform neutron-rich matter in supernovae. We find that the Coulomb interactions in astrophysical systems suppress density fluctuations. As a result, there is no first-order liquid-vapor phase transition. Finally, the virial expansion for low-density matter shows that the nuclear vapor phase is complex with significant concentrations of alpha particles and other light nuclei in addition to free nucleons.     

Influence of electromagnetic fluctuations on the resonant tunneling of electrons

We have considered the influence of electromagnetic fluctuations on electron tunneling via one non-degenerate resonant level, the problem that is relevant for electron transport through quantum dots in the Coulomb blockade regime. We show that the overall effect of the fluctuations depends on whether the electron bands in external electrodes are empty or filled. In the empty band case, depending on the relation between the tunneling rate Γ and characteristic frequency Ω of the fluctuations, the field either simply shifts the conductance peak (for rapid tunneling, Γ Ω) or broadens it (for Γ Ω). In the latter case, the system can be in three different regimes for different values of the coupling g between electrons and the field. Increasing interaction strength in the region g < 1 leads to gradual suppression of the conductance peak at the bare energy of the resonant level ε₀, while at g 1 it leads to the formation of a new peak of width at the energy ε₀ + E_cis a charging energy. For intermediate values of g the conductance is non-vanishing in the entire energy range from ε₀ to ε₀ + E_c. For filled bands the problem is essentially multi-electron in character. One consequence of this is that, in contrast to the situation with the empty band, the fluctuations of the resonant level do not suppress conductance at resonance for g < 1. At g> 1 a Coulomb gap appears in the position of the resonant level as a function of its bare energy which leads to suppression of conductance.     

Effects of bag surface motion with relativistic kinematics

Radial surface motion of the baryon bag is carried out in a model with relativistic kinematics, with confinement the result of volume energy and surface tension and the pion field coupled to the bag surface. We calculate radial wave functions for the nucleon, the Δ(1233) and the Roper resonance N^*(1450), which is identified as the first radial excitation of the nucleon.

Results are used to calculate form factors and pionic decay widths of the baryons examined. The approximations made in these calculations are discussed in extensio.     

Fluctuations and long-range order in finite-temperature pion condensates

We study the stability of the neutral and charged pion-condensed phases of nuclear matter against fluctuations of the order parameter. At finite temperatures pion condensates with an order parameter varying in only one dimension are, as we show, prohibited, while such condensates are allowed at zero temperature. Condensates that vary in two and three dimensions can be stable at all temperatures. Another allowed state, which may be favored energetically, is a quasi-ordered one-dimensional condensate characterized by long-range pion field correlations decaying only algebraically in space; insufficient experimental resolution may, however, limit one's ability to distinguish such a one-dimensional structure from true one-dimensional long-range order. Finally, we calculate the normal modes and the pion propagator in a charged one-dimensional running-wave condensate, explicitly illustrating the effect of long-range Coulomb forces on the order-parameter fluctuations.     

A variational approach to dense relativistic matter using functional techniques

The zero temperature ground state of an infinite system of baryons interacting with each other through the exchange of scalar and vector mesons is studied by means of a variational principle appropriate to relativistic systems. A trial wavefunctional is constructed which represents the fluctuation of the quantum fields about their mean values. The renormalized ground-state energy is subsequently calculated at a point where the vacuum is stable. Renormalization to all orders in the strong coupling constants is thereby obtained. A simple expression for the binding energy per particle with three free parameters is found. These parameters are fixed by fitting to the observed nucleon mass and to the values of the fermi momentum and binding energy of nuclear matter. A prediction for the binding energy and equation of state of nuclear and neutron matter is obtained for densities far away from the density of normal nuclei. Finally, a comparison is made with results obtained by other authors who have used classical-perturbative methods for the same system.     

Microscopic, many-body approach to inelastic pion-nucleus scattering

We develop a microscopic, Fermi liquid approach to (π, π′;) scattering to low-lying final states. Application to excitation of a neutron particle-hole state in infinite nuclear matter shows that the ratio of π⁻ to π⁺ cross sections is sensitive to Fermi liquid parameters.     

1/N expansion and the correlation energy of nuclear matter in the relativistic σω model

We propose the 1/N expansion method, where N can be identified with 2 due to the isospin SU(2), as a systematic expansion scheme for the relativistic meson-nucleon many-body theory. We derive a general formula for the computation of the effective action in the σω model based on the 1/N expansion, utilizing the functional integral method. In this scheme the leading contribution coincides with the familiar Hartree approximation. The elimination of the Landau ghost from the meson propagators in the subgraphs, which appears to be essential for our formulation, is also established.

As an application we compute the energy density of nuclear matter beyond the Hartree approximation including the next-to-leading order contributions in the 1/N expansion. In this order, one should include the ring energy contribution as a correlation energy addition to the exchange energy contribution. We find that we can describe the nuclear matter saturation properties without drastic changes of the overall physical picture which emerged in the Hartree approximation. The important role of the repulsive contribution due to the vacuum polarization effects in the ring energy is emphasized.     

Abnormal phase in dense neutron star matter

The possibility that neutron stars may possess an “abnormal” central region of the Lee-Wick type is discussed. It is found that when the abnormal equation of state includes quantum corrections and short-range repulsion as required in normal nuclear matter, the gravitational pressure in stable neutron stars is insufficient to induce a phase transition to abnormal matter.     

Three-body forces in nuclear matter from intermediate Δ-states in three-nucleon clusters

Those three-body force contributions in nuclear matter usually generated through a πN scattering amplitude dominated by the Δ(1236) resonance, are here treated as a three-nucleon cluster, in which one of the nucleons becomes, in an intermediate state, a Δ-resonance. All exchange diagrams are calculated and found to significantly reduce the energy per particle from the direct graph. This is contrary to earlier estimates of the exchanges, using more approximate approaches. The resulting attractive contribution is rather small, −1.1 MeV at κ_F = 1.4 fm⁻¹, but the roughly linear density dependence has a crucial effect on the saturation properties. The sensitivity of the results to the correlations used, and to the two-body force spin structure, is displayed. The energy per particle from clusters with three intermediate Δ-resonances is also estimated.     

Gluon condensates at finite baryon densities and temperature

We derive here the equation of state for quark matter with a nontrivial vacuum structure in QCD at finite temperature and baryon density. Using thermofield dynamics, the parameters of thermal vacuum and the gluon condensate function are determined through minimisation of the thermodynamic potential, along with a self-consistent determination of the effective gluon and quark masses. The scale parameter for the gluon condensates is related to the SVZ parameter in the context of QCD sum rules at zero temperature. With inclusion of quarks in the thermal vacuum the critical temperature at which the gluon condensate vanishes decreases as compared to that containing only gluons. At zero temperature, we similarly obtain the critical baryon density for the same to be about 0.36 fm^?3.     

Loop corrections and other many-body effects in relativistic field theories

Incorporation of effective masses into negative energy states (nucleon loop corrections) gives rise to repulsive many-body forces, as has been known for some time. Rather than renormalizing away the three- and four-body terms, we introduce medium corrections into the effective σ-exchange, which roughly cancel the nucleon loop terms for densities _nm, where _nm is nuclear matter density. Going to higher densities, the repulsive contributions tend to saturate whereas the attractive ones keep on growing in magnitude. The latter is achieved through use of a density-dependent effective mass for the σ-particle, m_σ = mσ(), such that m_σ() decreases with increasing density. Such a behavior is seen e.g. in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. It is argued that a smooth transition to chiral restoration implies a similar behavior. The resulting nuclear equation of state is, because of the self-consistency in the problem, immensely insensitive to changes in the mass or coupling constant of the σ-particle.     

Probing the EOS and nn cross section by analyzing the collective flow at high and intermediate energy in the RVUU approach

We have studied the collective flow at high and intermediate energy in a relativistic Vlasov-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (RVUU) approach based on Walecka's QHD-I model, with the aim to probe the nuclear-matter equation of state (EOS) and the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross section σ. At high energy (1.2 GeV/u), the out-of-plane azimuthal correlation function C(Ψ) is only sensitive to the effective mass m^* and insensitive to the nuclear compressibility K and the effective nucleon-nucleon cross section σ within a reasonable range. We have found that the preferred value of m^* is about 0.85 m. With this value of m^*, from the in-plane mean transverse momentum P_x(Y) which is sensitive to both m^* and σ we have drawn an effective nn cross section σ, namely σ 0.8σ_f where σ_f is the free nucleon-nucleon cross section in Cugnon's parametrization. Taking advantage of the fact that the energy of vanishing flow (EVF) at intermediate energy (around 100 MeV/u) is only sensitive to the nucleon-nucleon cross section σ, we have drawn some information on the nucleon-nucleon cross section σ, namely σ = (1.4±0.2)σ_f.     

Meson fields, exchange currents and progenitor sum rules

The theory of the integrated photoabsorption cross section and the dipole sum rule is reviewed. A new progenitor sum rule, in which meson fields appear explicitly, is derived from a field theory of interacting pions and nucleons. The relation of this sum rule to previous results obtained in a potential theory is elucidated, and the role of neutron-proton correlations in nuclear ground states is discussed in terms of their effect on the dipole sum rule. The inclusion of ρ-mesons (again in an oversimplified theory) and their contribution to progenitor sum rules is also mentioned.     

Vacuum renormalization of the chiral-sigma model and the structure of neutron stars

Vacuum renormalization corrections are calculated for normal nuclear matter and neutron star matter in the chiral-sigma model. The theory is generalized to include hyperons in equilibrium with nucleons and leptons. The equations of state corresponding to two compression moduli, a “stiff” and “soft” one for nuclear matter, are studied. It is shown that fully one half the mass of a neutron star at the limiting mass is composed of matter at less than twice nuclear density. Neutron star masses are therefore moderately sensitive to the properties of matter near saturation and to the domain of the hyperons, but dominated by neither. The predictions for the two equations of state are compared with observed neutron star masses, and only the stiffer is compatible.     

The hydrino and other unlikely states

We discuss the tightly bound (hydrino) solution of the Klein–Gordon equation for the Coulomb potential in 3 dimensions. We show that a similar tightly bound state occurs for the Dirac equation for the Coulomb potential in 2 dimensions. These states are unphysical since they disappear if the nuclear charge distribution is taken to have an arbitrarily small but non-zero radius.