A precise measurement of the spin-dependent neutron scattering length of 3He

The poor knowledge of the spin-dependent neutron scattering length of ³He has until now handicapped nuclear four body theory and the interpretation of excitations in the quantum liquid. We have measured, for the first time directly, the real part of the bound incoherent neutron scattering length, b_i′ of ³He. A neutron spin echo spectrometer was used to detect pseudomagnetic precession of polarised neutrons passing through polarised ³He gas. Any absolute calibrations of sample and beam parameters were avoided using simple transmission measurements with non-polarised neutrons. The only a priory information required was the spin-dependent neutron absorption cross section of ³He. The result is b_i′ = -2.365(20) fm, which reduces the prior uncertainty by a factor 30. The corresponding new value of the bound incoherent scattering cross section is σ_i = 1.532(12) barn. Including the known value of the coherent neutron scattering length, we obtain new values for the real parts of the free triplet and singlet neutron scattering lengths, a_-′ = 7.370(58) fm and a₊′ = 3.278(53) fm.     

Ab initio calculation of the 4He(e, e'd )d reaction

The two-body knock-out reaction ⁴He(e, e'd )d is calculated at various momentum transfers. The full four-nucleon dynamics is taken into account microscopically both in the initial and the final states. As NN interaction the central MT-I/III potential is used. The calculation shows a strong reduction of the coincidence cross-section due to the final-state interaction. Nonetheless, the theoretical results exhibit a considerable overestimation of the experimental cross-section at lower momentum transfer. Comparisons with other, less complete, calculations suggest that consideration of a more realistic ground state might not be sufficient for a good agreement with experiment, rather a more realistic final-state interaction could play an essential role.     

Quantum Monte Carlo studies of bound and unbound states

Over the last fifteen years, there has been tremendous progress in understanding how nuclear structure arises from the nucleon-nucleon interaction. I describe the contribution to this progress made by quantum Monte Carlo computational methods, as well as directions to be taken in future work. Most effort in the past has concentrated on energy spectra, and we have had good success in computing the spectra of systems with A≤12. We are now shifting our attention to off-diagonal and scattering/reaction properties of the light nuclei. I also discuss briefly the relation of quantum Monte Carlo methods to other ab initio methods and their particular relevance for weakly-bound nuclei produced at radioactive-beam facilities.     

Precision measurement of vector and tensor analyzing powers in elastic deuteron-proton scattering

High-precision vector and tensor analyzing powers of elastic deuteron-proton ( d + p) scattering have been measured at intermediate energies to investigate effects of three-nucleon forces. Angular distributions in the range of 70^°-120^° in the center-of mass frame for incident-deuteron energies E _d ^lab = 130 and 180 MeV were obtained using the RIKEN facility. The beam polarization was unambiguously determined by measuring the ^12C (d, α)^10B(2⁺) reaction at 0^°. Results of the measurements are compared with state-of-the-art three-nucleon calculations. The present modeling of nucleon-nucleon forces and its extension to the three-nucleon system is not sufficient to describe the high-precision data consistently and requires, therefore, further investigation.     

Phenomenology of the deuteron electromagnetic form factors

A rigorous extraction of the deuteron charge form factors from tensor polarization data in elastic electron-deuteron scattering, at given values of the 4-momentum transfer, is presented. Then the world data for elastic electron-deuteron scattering is used to parameterize, in three different ways, the three electromagnetic form factors of the deuteron in the 4-momentum transfer range 0-7 fm⁻¹. This procedure is made possible with the advent of recent polarization measurements. The parameterizations allow a phenomenological characterization of the deuteron electromagnetic structure. They can be used to remove ambiguities in the form factors extraction from future polarization data. Received: 28 January 2000 / Revised version: 25 February 2000     

Nuclear-matter distributions of halo nuclei from elastic proton scattering in inverse kinematics

Proton-nucleus elastic scattering at intermediate energies, a well-established method for probing nuclear-matter density distributions of stable nuclei, was applied for the first time to exotic nuclei. This method is demonstrated to be an effective means for obtaining accurate and detailed information on the size and radial shape of halo nuclei. Absolute differential cross-sections for small-angle scattering were measured at energies near 700 MeV/u for the neutron-rich helium isotopes ⁶He and ⁸He, and more recently for the lithium isotopes ⁶Li, ⁸Li, ⁹Li and ¹¹Li, using He and Li beams provided by the fragment separator FRS at GSI Darmstadt. Experiments were performed in inverse kinematics using the hydrogen-filled ionization chamber IKAR which served simultaneously as target and recoil-proton detector. For deducing nuclear-matter distributions, differential cross-sections calculated with the aid of the Glauber multiple-scattering theory, using various parametrizations for the nucleon density distributions as input, were fitted to the experimental cross-sections. The results on nuclear-matter radii and matter distributions are presented, and the significance of the data for a halo structure is discussed. Nuclear-matter distributions obtained for ⁶He and ⁸He conform with the concept that both nuclei compose of α-particle like cores and significant neutron halos. The matter distribution in ¹¹Li exhibits, as expected from previous reaction cross-section studies with nuclear targets, the by far most extended halo component of all nuclei being investigated. In addition the present data allow a quantitative comparison of the structure of the He and Li isobares of either the mass number A = 6 or A = 8. The measured differential cross-sections have also been used for probing density distributions as predicted from various microscopic calculations. A few examples are presented. Received: 21 March 2002 / Accepted: 16 May 2002 / Published online: 31 October 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: p.egelhof@gsi.de     

Proton-proton scattering without Coulomb force renormalization

We demonstrate numerically that proton-proton (pp scattering observables can be determined directly by standard short-range methods using a screened pp Coulomb force without renormalization. In the examples the appropriate screening radii are given. We also numerically investigate solutions of the 3-dimensional Lippmann-Schwinger (LS) equation for a screened Coulomb potential alone in the limit of large screening radii and confirm analytically predicted properties for off-shell, half-shell and on-shell Coulomb t -matrices. These 3-dimensional solutions will form a basis for a novel approach to include the pp Coulomb interaction into the 3N Faddeev framework.     

On the correctness of estimates on (n,e)-amplitude and neutron polarizability from total cross sections of Bi and Pb

The explanation of a discrepancy in the(n, e)-scattering amplitude values obtained by the Garching and Dubna groups from the data on the scattering length and total cross sections for Bi was suggested. It is also shown that the methods of derivation of the neutron polarizability coefficient used by these groups have incorrectnesses leading to additional uncertainties of neutron polarizability evaluations.     

Universal properties of the four-body system with large scattering length

Few-body systems with large scattering length have universal properties that do not depend on the details of their interactions at short distances. We study the universal bound-state properties of the four-boson system with large scattering length in an effective quantum mechanics approach. We compute the four-body binding energies using the Yakubovsky equations for positive and negative scattering length. Moreover, we study the correlation between three- and four-body energies and present a generalized Efimov plot for the four-body system. These results are useful for understanding the cluster structure of nuclei and for the creation of weakly bound tetramers with cold atoms close to a Feshbach resonance.     

Irreducible pionic effects in nucleon-deuteron scattering below 20 MeV

The consequences of a recently introduced irreducible pionic effect in low-energy nucleon-deuteron scattering are analyzed. Differential cross-sections, nucleon (vector) and deuteron (vector and tensor) analyzing powers, and four different polarization transfer coefficients are considered. This 3NF-like effect is generated by the pion exchange diagram in presence of a two-nucleon correlation and is partially cancelled by meson retardation contributions. Indications are provided that such type of effects are capable to selectively increase the vector (nucleon and deuteron) analyzing powers, while in the considered energy range they are almost negligible on the differential cross-sections. These indications, observed with different realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions, provide additional evidences that such 3NF-like effects have indeed the potential for solving the puzzle of the vector analyzing powers. Smaller but non-negligible effects are observed for the other spin observables. In some cases, we find that the modifications introduced by such pionic effects on these spin observables (other than the vector analyzing powers) are significant and interesting and could be observed by experiments. Received: 21 November 2001 / Accepted: 18 March 2002     

Structure of low-lying <Superscript>12</Superscript>C resonances

The hyperspherical adiabatic expansion is combined with complex scaling and used to calculate low-lying nuclear resonances of ¹²C in the 3α model. We use Ali-Bodmer potentials and compare results for other potentials α-α with similar ⁸Be properties. A three-body potential is used to adjust the ¹²C resonance positions to desired values extending the applicability of the method to many-body systems decaying into three α-particles. For natural choices of three-body potentials we find 14 resonances below the proton separation threshold, i.e. two 0⁺, three 2⁺, two 4⁺, one of each of 1^±, 2^-, 3^±, 4^-, and 6⁺. The partial-wave decomposition of each resonance is calculated as a function of the hyperradius. Strong variation is found from small to large distance. The connection to previous experimental and theoretical results is discussed and agreements as well as disagreements are emphasized.     

Measurement of RLT and ATL in the 4He(e, e’p)3H reaction at pmiss of 130-300 MeV/ c

We have measured the ⁴He(e, ep)³H reaction at missing momenta of 130-300 MeV/c using the three-spectrometer facility at the Mainz microtron MAMI. Data were taken in perpendicular kinematics to allow us to determine the response function R_LT and the asymmetry term A_TL. The data are compared to both relativistic and non-relativistic calculations.     

First observation of medium-spin excitations in the <Superscript>138</Superscript>Cs nucleus

The Penning trap mass spectrometer JYFLTRAP, coupled to the Ion Guide Isotope Separator On-Line (IGISOL) facility at Jyv?skyl?, was employed to measure the atomic masses of neutron-rich ^70-73Ni and ^{73, 75}Cu isotopes with a typical accuracy less than 5keV. The mass of ⁷³Ni was measured for the first time. Comparisons with the previous data are discussed. Two-neutron separation energies show a weak subshell closure at ⁶⁸ ₂₈Ni₄₀ . A well established proton shell gap is observed at Z = 28 .     

Scattering of 11Be halo nucleus from 209Bi at the Coulomb barrier

The scattering of the radioactive, weakly bound, halo nucleus ¹¹Be from ²⁰⁹Bi has been studied at 40MeV beam energy. The measurement performed with a low-intensity and a large-emittance secondary beam could be made using an extremely compact, large solid angle (∼ 2π sr) detecting set-up, based on 8 highly segmented Si telescopes. The ^{11, 9}Be scattering angular distributions, as well as their relative reaction cross-sections, resulted to be rather similar. This may suggest that at Coulomb barrier energies the halo structure and the very small binding energy of the ¹¹Be projectile have no big influence on the reaction dynamics.     

Lifetime measurement in 74Kr and 76Kr

Lifetimes of excited states in the ground-state bands of ⁷⁴Kr and ⁷⁶Kr were measured using the recoil-distance Doppler-shift and the differential decay curve methods. The states were populated in the ⁴⁰Ca(⁴⁰Ca, α2p) and ⁴⁰Ca(⁴⁰Ca, 4p) reactions. Gamma rays were detected with the GASP array which was coupled to the Cologne Plunger device. The results resolve discrepancies between earlier lifetime measurements and a recent Coulomb excitation experiment. Experimental transition rates are compared to theoretical calculations. The results support a strong mixing between prolate and oblate configurations for the low-spin states, and represent an important basis for the interpretation and understanding of the shape coexistence phenomenon in this mass region.     

Perturbative role in the inelastic electron scattering from <Superscript>29</Superscript>Si

Inelastic electron scattering form factors away from the closed sd -shell are investigated. This investigation covers the low-lying states in ²⁹Si , which is considered according to the many-particle configuration mixing shell model as the ¹⁶O core, plus thirteen nucleons distributed over the entire sd -shell orbits. The investigation concentrates on the perturbative role of the core, which is called core polarization effects, on the inelastic electron scattering form factors. Core polarization effects are taken into consideration through the excitation of nucleons from 1s and 1p core orbits, and also from the 2s -1d valence orbits into higher shells, with 2ℏω excitations. Core polarization matrix elements are calculated with the M3Y effective interaction. For the sd -shell model space, a new Hamiltonian, based on a renormalized G -matrix, USDB, is used. All calculations are performed without adjusting any parameters.     

Bremsstrahlung emission accompanying the α -decay of 214Po

We analyze the bremsstrahlung emission obtained by the α -γ coincidence measurements to investigate on the α -decay dynamics of the ²¹⁴ Po nucleus. We performed the experiment using a radioactive ²²⁶ Ra source leading, by α -decays, to the ²¹⁴ Po nucleus, and the apparatus with the Si detector for α -particles, the NaI(Tl) detector able to collect photons with energies up to about 1 MeV. We compare the experimental data with the quantum-mechanical calculations and find a good agreement between theory and experiment for photon energies up to 765 keV. In the experimental data of the bremsstrahlung spectrum one can see the presence of slight oscillations.     

A new determination of the 4 He and 3 He masses in a Penning trap

The atomic and nuclear masses of ⁴He and ³He have been measured using doubly charged ions in a Penning trap connected to an electron beam ion source. Recent technical improvements allow mass determinations with uncertainties of a few parts in 10¹⁰. The obtained atomic masses are 4.002 603 256 8(13) u and 3.016 029 323 5(28) u respectively. These values deviate by as much as 5 standard deviations from the accepted values. Received 23 October 2000 and Received in final form 6 February 2001