Nuclear relativistic hartree-fock approximation with effective pions

The effect of an interaction between the ??- and ??-meson fields, as well as that of the mixture of pseudoscalar (PS) and pseudovector (PV) couplings for the ??N vertex on the shell structure of finite nuclei are analyzed in the framework of different nonlinear nuclearmodels based on the relativistic Hartree-Fock approximation. For the case of a dominant ??N PV coupling, it is found that if the ??-?? interaction generates an effective pion mass increasing with the nuclear density, the unrealistic effect of pions on the shell structure can be strongly reduced, keeping, roughly, the contribution of pions to the total binding energy. The ??N PS coupling increases slightly the spin-orbit splittings and the binding energy of the single-particle levels.     

Nucleons after pion absorption

We calculate energy spectra and angular distributions of single and correlated spectra after the absorption of stopped pions in nuclei. We assume: The pion is abosrbed by a pair of nucleons; these primary nucleons may leave the nucleus directly or only after one or more collisions with other nucleons. We propose a multiple scattering expansion for the intranuclear cascade after pion absorption. Various experimental data are successfully described in shape and absolute magnitude. The ratio R_np = R(π^?np → nn)/R (π^? pp → np) is determined from the experimental proton spectra: R_np = 13 ± 6.     

Probing nuclear expansion dynamics with π−/π+-spectra

We study the dynamics of charged pions in the nuclear medium via the ratio of differential π^? - and π⁺-spectra in a coupled-channel BUU (CBUU) approach. The relative energy shift of the charged pions is found to correlate with the pion freeze-out time in nucleus-nucleus collisions as well as with the impact parameter of the heavy-ion reaction. Furthermore, the long-range Coulomb force provides valuable information on the expansion dynamics of the hot nuclear system. Detailed comparisons with experimental data for Au + Au at 1 AGeV and Ni + Ni at 2.0 AGeV are presented.     

Two- and three-dimensional analysis of bose-einstein correlations in�� +/K+p interactions at 250 GeV/c

The NA22 data on?? ^? ?? ^? correlations are analyzed in terms of a number of two- and three-dimensional parametrizations (Gaussian space-time, Goldhaber, Bowler string-like, Bertsch hydrodynamical, Kopylov-Podgoretskii, etc.). Contrary to the results obtained for e⁺e^? and??p collisions, the Goldhaber parametrization, as well as string-like models, fail in describing the hadron-hadron data. Better fits are obtained in the framework of surface-emitting fireball-like models, both when including and excluding hydrodynamical expansion of nuclear matter. Our results indicate that pion radiation occurs at earlier stages of matter evolution than in nuclear collisions.     

Universal pion freeze-out in heavy-ion collisions

Based on an evaluation of data on pion interferometry and on particle yields at midrapidity, we propose a universal condition for thermal freeze-out of pions in heavy-ion collisions. We show that freeze-out occurs when the mean free path of pions lambda(f) reaches a value of about 1 fm, which is much smaller than the spatial extent of the system at freeze-out. This critical mean free path is independent of the centrality of the collision and beam energy from the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.     

Mechanism of pion production in αp scattering at 1 GeV/nucleon

An analysis of the experimental data on one-pion and two-pion production in the p(??, ????)X reaction studied in a semi-exclusive experiment at an energy of E _?? = 4.2 GeV has been performed. The obtained results demonstrate that the inelastic ??-particle scattering on the proton at the energy of the experiment proceeds either through excitation and decay of the ?? resonance in the projectile ?? particle, or through excitation in the target proton of the Roper resonance, which decays into a nucleon and a pion, or a nucleon and a ?? meson??a system of two pions in the isospin I = 0, S-wave state.     

Interference of secondary pions and time-space characteristics of their emission volume in π− p interactions at 40 GeV/c

The interference of positive and negative pions produced in π^? p interactions at 40 GeV/c is studied. It is shown that negative pions are emitted from larger distance than positive ones. The influence of resonance production on the size of pion emission volume is observed.     

Coherent two pion photoproduction on 12C

We develop the formalism for coherent two pion photoproduction in nuclei and perform actual calculations of cross sections for π⁻π⁺ and π⁰π⁰ photoproduction on ¹²C. We find that due to the isospin symmetry the cross section for π⁰π⁰ production is very small and has a maximum when the pions propagate together. However, the kinematical region where the energies and polar angles of the two π⁰ mesons are equal and their relative azimuthal angle Ø = 180° is forbidden. Conversely in the π⁻π⁺ production the pions prefer to have a relative azimuthal angle 180° and the production of the pions propagating together is suppressed. The dominant one-body mechanism in both channels is related to the excitation of the Δ isobar. Hence the reaction can serve as a source of information about Δ's properties in nucleus. We have found that the reaction is sensitive to effects of the pion and Δ renormalization in the nuclear medium, similar to those found in the coherent (γ, π⁰) reaction, but magnified because of the presence of the two pions.     

Measurements of the Mean Free Paths of the Proton and Pions in the Nuclear Matter

The results of measuring the yields of neutral and charged pions in the (, p) reaction on Li, C, and Al nuclei are presented as functions of the proton energy and azimuth angle of pion emission. The experiment was performed in the second resonance region of the photon energy. The measurements are analyzed within the model of single and double quasi-free pion photoproduction. The energy dependences of the mean free path of the proton and neutral and charged pions are obtained based on the dependence of the reaction yield on the atomic number of the target nucleus.     

Nucleon-nucleon effective field theory without pions

Nuclear processes involving momenta much below the mass of the pion may be described by an effective field theory in which the pions do not appear as explicit degrees of freedom. The effects of the pion and all other virtual hadrons are reproduced by the coefficients of gauge-invariant local operators involving the nucleon field. Nucleon-nucleon scattering phase shift data constrains many of the coefficients that appear in the effective Lagrangean but at some order in the expansion coefficients enter that must be constrained by other observables. We compute several observables in the two-nucleon sector up to next-to-next-to leading order in the effective field theory without pions, or to the order at which a counterterm involving four-nucleon field operators is encountered. Effective range theory is recovered from the effective field theory up to the order where relativistic corrections enter or where four-nucleon-external current local operators arise. For the deuteron magnetic moment, quadrupole moment and the np → dγ radiative capture cross section a four-nucleon-one-photon counterterm exists at next-to-leading order. The electric polarizability and electric charge form factor of the deuteron are determined up to next-to-next-to-leading order, which includes the first appearance of relativistic corrections.     

Charged pions from Ni on Ni collisions between 1 and 2 AGeV

Charged pions from Ni + Ni reactions at 1.05, 1.45 and 1.93 AGeV are measured with the FOPI detector. The mean π^± multiplicities per mean number of participants increase with beam energy, in accordance with earlier studies of the Ar + KCl and La + La systems. The pion kinetic energy spectra have concave shape and are fitted by the superposition of two Boltzmann distributions with different temperatures. These apparent temperatures depend only weakly on bombarding energy. The pion angular distributions show a forward/backward enhancement at all energies, but not the Θ = 90⁰ enhancement which was observed in case of the Au + Au system. These features also determine the rapidity distributions which are therefore in disagreement with the hypothesis of one thermal source. The importance of the Coulomb interaction and of the pion rescattering by spectator matter in producing these phenomena is discussed.     

Interferometrical signature of mixed phase in A+A collisions

We have calculated the pion rapidity distribution, the transversal momentum spectrum and the pion correlator in outward, sideward and longitudinal directions for S+S collisions at high energy. We used a two-temperature model that allows us to explain the abundance of pions at smallp _T and highp _T . The first source, which is at high temperature, is in a quark-gluon-hadron mixed phase radiating pions due to a deflagration shock wave on the background of longitudinal expansion. The second source consists of the unburnt part of the matter in hadronic phase. The interferometrical analysis at differentp _T gives a signature for two expanding sources separated in time and allows the measurement of the lifetime and other parameters of each of them.     

On the Bosonic Atoms

We investigate the ground state properties of atoms, in which substitute fermions—electrons by bosons, namely, π^?-mesons. We perform some calculations in the frame of modified Hartree–Fock (HF) equation. The modification takes into account symmetry, instead of antisymmetry of the pair identical bosons wavefunction. The modified HF approach thus enhances (doubles) the effect of self-action for the boson case. Therefore, we accordingly modify the HF equations by eliminating the self-action terms “by hand.” The contribution of meson–meson and meson–nucleon non-Coulomb interaction is inessential at least for atoms with low and intermediate nuclear charge, which is our main subject. We found that the binding energy of pion negative ions A_π^-, pion atoms A_π, and the number of extra bound pions ΔN_π increases with the nuclear charge Z. In particular, for Xe ΔN_π = 4. As an example of a simple process with a pion atom, we consider photoionization that differs essentially from that for electron atoms. Namely, it is not monotonic decreasing from the threshold but has instead a prominent maximum above threshold. We study also elastic scattering of pions by pion atoms.     

Time-projection chamber for the PEN experiment

The PEN collaboration carries out a precision measurement of the ??⁺ ?? e ⁺?? decay branching ratio at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI, Switzerland). A special mini time-projection chamber (mTPC) has been developed for registration of particles in the pion beam. The chamber contains 14 × 10^?3 g/cm² of matter on the particle path. The chamber was successfully used during one-year-long run. Design and characteristics of the mTPC are described.