Nuclear Physics Programs for the Future RIBs Facility in Korea

We present nuclear physics programs based on the planned experiments using rare isotope beams (RIBs) for the future Korean Rare Isotope Beams Accelerator facility(KRIA). This ambitious facility has both an Isotope Separation On Line (ISOL) and fragmentation capability for producing RIBs and accelerating beams of wide range mass of nuclides with energies of a few to hundreds MeV per nucleon. Low energy RIBs at Elab = 5 to 20 MeV per nucleon are for the study of nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics toward and beyond the drip lines while higher energy RIBs produced by inflight fragmentation with the reaccelerated ions from the ISOL enable to explore the neutron drip lines in intermediate mass regions. The planned programs have goals for investigating internal structures of the exotic nuclei toward and beyond the nucleon drip lines by addressing the following issues: how the shell structure evolves in areas of extreme proton to neutron imbalance; whether the isospin symmetry maintains in isobaric mirror nuclei at and beyond the drip lines; how two-proton radioactivity affects abundances of the elements; what the role of the continuum states including resonant states above protondecay threshold in exotic nuclei is in astrophysical nuclear reaction processes, and how the nuclear reaction rates triggered by unbound proton-rich nuclei make an effect on rapid proton capture processes in a very hot stellar plasma.     

Topology of nuclear reaction networks of interest for astrophysics

正Our understanding of the observed elemental abundance in the universe, stemming from nuclear reactions during the big bang or from nucleosynthesis within stellar environments,requires theoretical analyses based on multidimensional nucleosynthesis calculations involving hundreds of nuclei connected via thousands of nuclear processes. Up to recently,full nucleosynthesis network calculations remained computationally expensive and prohibitive. A recent publication by a Chinese group led by YuGang Ma [1] has proved that     

Reaction Rate Weighted Multilayer Nuclear Reaction Network

Nuclear reaction rate A is a significant factor in processes of nucleosyntheses.A multi-layer directed-weighted nuclear reaction network,in which the reaction rate is taken as the weight,and neutron,proton,~4 He and the remainder nuclei as the criteria for different reaction layers,is for the first time built based on all thermonuclear reactions in the JINA REACLIB database.Our results show that with the increase in the stellar temperature T_9,the distribution of nuclear reaction rates on the R-layer network demonstrates a transition from unimodal to bimodal distributions.Nuclei on the R-layer in the region of A=[1,2.5×10~1] have a more complicated out-going degree distribution than that in the region of A=[10~(11),10~(13)],and the number of involved nuclei at T_9=1 is very different from the one at T_9=3.The redundant nuclei in the region of A=[1,2.5×10~1] at T_9=3 prefer(γ,p) and(γ,α) reactions to the ones at T_9=1,which produce nuclei around the β stable line.This work offers a novel way to the big-data analysis on the nuclear reaction network at stellar temperatures.     

A dumbbell model with five parameters describing nuclear fusion or fission

We propose a five-parameter dumbbell model to describe the fusion and fission processes of massive nuclei, where the collective variables are: the distance ρ between the center-of-mass of two fusing nuclei, the neck parameter ν, asymmetry D, two deformation variables β₁ and β₂ . The present model has macroscopic qualitative expression of polarization and nuclear collision of head to head, sphere to sphere, waist to waist and so on. The conception of the "projectile eating target" based on open mouth and swallow is proposed to describe the nuclear fusion process, and our understanding of the probability of fusion and quasi-fission is in agreement with some previous work. The calculated fission barriers of a lot of compound nuclei are compared with the experimental data.     

Pro duction of Exotic Nuclei in Low-Energy Multi-Nucleon Transfer Reactions

Multinucleon transfer processes in low-energy heavy ion collisions open a new field of research in nuclear physics, namely, production and studying properties of heavy neutron rich nuclei. This not-yet-explored area of the nuclear map is extremely important for understanding the astrophysical nucleosynthesis and the origin of heavy elements. Beams of very heavy U-like ions are needed to produce new long-living isotopes of transfermium and superheavy elements located very close to the island of stability.The calculated cross sections are high enough to perform the experiments at available accelerators.Beams of medium-mass ions (such as 136Xe, 192Os, 198Pt) can be used for the production of neutron rich nuclei located along the neutron closed shell N = 126 (the last waiting point) having the largest impact on the astrophysical r-process. The Low-energy multinucleon transfer reactions is a very efficient tool also for the production and spectroscopic study of light exotic nuclei. The corresponding cross sections are 2 or 3 orders of magnitude larger as compared with high energy fragmentation reactions.     

Effect of nuclear deformation on direct capture reactions

Direct radiative capture processes are well described by a spherical potential model. Since most nuclei are not spherical, and in order for the model to explain direct radiative captures more accurately, the effect of nuclear deformation has been analyzed with q-deformed Woods-Saxon potential in this work. The results imply that nuclear deformation largely affects the direct radiative capture, and it should be taken into account when discussing direct capture reactions.     

Nucleon properties in the nuclear medium

We study the medium modifications of nucleon properties in nuclear matter and finite nuclei. The nucleons are described as nontopological solitons, which interact through the self-consistent exchange of scalar and vector mesons. The model adopted incorporates explicit quark degrees of freedom into nuclear many-body systems, and it can provide satisfactory results on the properties of nuclear matter and finite nuclei.     

Systematic study of α preformation probability of nuclear isomeric and ground states

In this paper, based on the two-potential approach combining with the isospin dependent nuclear potential, we systematically compare the α preformation probabilities of odd-A nuclei between nuclear isomeric states and ground states. The results indicate that during the process of α particle preforming, the low lying nuclear isomeric states are similar to ground states. Meanwhile, in the framework of single nucleon energy level structure, we find that for nuclei with nucleon number below the magic numbers, the α preformation probabilities of high-spin states seem to be larger than low ones. For nuclei with nucleon number above the magic numbers, the α preformation probabilities of isomeric states are larger than those of ground states.     

Stellar matter in supernova explosions and nuclear multifragmentation

During the collapse of massive stars and type-II supernova explosions, stellar matter reaches densities and temperatures which are similar to ones obtained in intermediate-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. The nuclear multifragmentation reactions can be used for determination of properties of nuclear matter at subnuclear densities, in the region of the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. It is demonstrated that the modified properties of hot nuclei (in particular, their symmetry energy) extracted from the multifragmentation data can essentially influence the nuclear composition of stellar matter. The effects of the modification of nuclear properties on weak processes and on nucleosynthesis are also discussed. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

The fate of Li and Be in stars and in the laboratory

We connect the observed under-abundances of Li and Be in dwarfs, with recent results on nuclear cross sections at low energies: for collisions of protons with atomic or molecular targets, the measured cross sections seem too high with respect to extrapolations for bare nuclei. Phenomenologically, these anomalous nuclear interactions can be described in terms of an effective screening potentialU _lab in the range of few hundred eV: in the presence of the electron cloud, nuclei become more transparent to each other as if the effective collision energy is aumented byU _lab. This implies that fusion cross sections are enlarged and at the same time elastic cross sections are lowered. If something similar occurs in stellar plasma, the nuclear burning temperatures are lowered, whereas diffusion processes are enhanced. We find that the observed Li and Be abundances in the Hyades and in the Sun can be reproduced for effective screening potentials of the plasma in the range of 600–700 eV, close to that found by experiments in the laboratory.     

Flow probe of symmetry energy in relativistic heavy-ion reactions

Various definitions of the symmetry energy are introduced for nuclei, dilute nuclear matter below saturation density and stellar matter, which is found in compact stars or core-collapse supernovae. The resulting differences are exemplified by calculations in a theoretical approach based on a generalized relativistic density functional for dense matter. It contains nucleonic clusters as explicit degrees of freedom with medium-dependent properties that are derived for light clusters from a quantum statistical approach. With such a model the dissolution of clusters at high densities can be described. The effects of the liquid-gas phase transition in nuclear matter and of cluster formation in stellar matter on the density dependence of the symmetry energy are studied for different temperatures. It is observed that correlations and the formation of inhomogeneous matter at low densities and temperatures causes an increase of the symmetry energy as compared to calculations assuming a uniform uncorrelated spatial distribution of constituent baryons and leptons.     

Consequences of nuclear electron capture in core collapse supernovae

The most important weak nuclear interaction to the dynamics of stellar core collapse is electron capture, primarily on nuclei with masses larger than 60. In prior simulations of core collapse, electron capture on these nuclei has been treated in a highly parametrized fashion, if not ignored. With realistic treatment of electron capture on heavy nuclei come significant changes in the hydrodynamics of core collapse and bounce. We discuss these as well as the ramifications for the postbounce evolution in core collapse supernovae.     

Nuclear β-decays of highly ionized heavy atoms in stellar interiors

β-transition processes of heavy nuclei in stellar interiors are re-investigated. First, the relative abundances of ions in thermal equilibrium for given temperature, density and chemical composition are determined by solving the Saha ionization equation with the simultaneous inclusion of the continuum depression evaluated from a finite-temperature Thomas-Fermi model. Next, β-transitions in the equilibrated matter are studied. The numerical results for some selected examples demonstrate the need for such an involved treatment of β-decays (and particularly of bound-state β^? decays and orbital-electron captures) of certain nuclei of astrophysical importance.     

低能带电粒子聚变反应中的静电屏蔽效应

系统地评述了天体物理感兴趣能区带电粒子核反应中电子屏蔽效应的实验及理论研究的进展 ,简要地介绍了恒星热核反应中等离子体静电屏蔽效应理论探讨的概况 .着重说明深入研究天体物理环境对核过程的影响是核天体物理学的重要课题之一.     

The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes in the Near Universe

A fundamental role is attributed to supermassive black holes (SMBH), and the feedback they generate, in the evolution of galaxies. But theoretical models trying to reproduce the M_SMBH vs. sigma relation (between the SMBH mass and stellar velocity dispersion of the galaxy bulge) make broad assumptions about the physical processes involved. These assumptions are needed due to the scarcity of observational constraints on the relevant physical processes which occur when the SMBH is being fed via mass accretion in active galactic nuclei (AGN). In search for these constraints, our group—AGN integral field spectroscopy (AGNIFS)—has been mapping the gas kinematics as well as the stellar population properties of the inner few hundred parsecs of a sample of nearby AGN hosts. In this contribution, I report on results obtained so far which show gas inflows along nuclear spirals and compact disks in the inner tens to hundreds of pc in nearby AGN hosts which seem to be the sources of fuel to the AGN. As the inflow rates are much larger than the AGN accretion rate, the excess gas must be depleted via formation of new stars in the bulge. Indeed, in many cases, we find ～100 pc circumnuclear rings of recent star formation (ages ～10–500 Myr) that can be interpreted as a signature of coevolution of the host galaxy and its AGN. I also report on the mapping of outflows in ionized gas, which are ubiquitous in Seyfert galaxies, and discuss mass outflow rates and powers.