Dependence of nuclear binding on hadronic mass variation

We examine how the binding of light ($A\leq 8$) nuclei depends on possible variations of hadronic masses, including meson, nucleon, and nucleon-resonance masses. Small variations in hadronic masses may have occurred over time; the present results can help evaluate the consequences for big bang nucleosynthesis. Larger variations may be relevant to current attempts to extrapolate properties of nucleon-nucleon interactions from lattice QCD calculations. Results are presented as derivatives of the energy with respect to the different masses so they can be combined with different predictions of the hadronic mass-dependence on the underlying current-quark mass $m_q$. As an example, we employ a particular set of relations obtained from a study of hadron masses and sigma terms based on Dyson-Schwinger equations and a Poincar\'{e}-covariant Faddeev equation for confined quarks and diquarks. We find that nuclear binding decreases moderately rapidly as the quark mass increases, with the deuteron becoming unbound when the pion mass is increased by $\sim$60% (corresponding to an increase in $X_q=m_q/\Lambda_{QCD}$ of 2.5). In the other direction, the dineutron becomes bound if the pion mass is decreased by $\sim$15% (corresponding to a reduction of $X_q$ by $\sim$30%). If we interpret the disagreement between big bang nucleosynthesis calculations and measurements to be the result of variation in $X_q$, we obtain an estimate $\delta X_q/X_q=K \cdot (0.013 \pm 0.002)$ where $K \sim 1$ (the expected accuracy in $K$ is about a factor of 2). The result is dominated by $^7$Li data.Comment: 28 pages including 3 figures v2:additional citations/acknowledgments adde

Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations of Light Nuclei

Accurate quantum Monte Carlo calculations of ground and low-lying excited states of light p-shell nuclei are now possible for realistic nuclear Hamiltonians that fit nucleon-nucleon scattering data. At present, results for more than 30 different (J^pi;T) states, plus isobaric analogs, in A \leq 8 nuclei have been obtained with an excellent reproduction of the experimental energy spectrum. These microscopic calculations show that nuclear structure, including both single-particle and clustering aspects, can be explained starting from elementary two- and three-nucleon interactions. Various density and momentum distributions, electromagnetic form factors, and spectroscopic factors have also been computed, as well as electroweak capture reactions of astrophysical interest.Comment: 43 pages, including 12 embedded figures. Revised version corrects postscript error on page 29 and small numberical errors in discussion of table 3. With permission from the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science. Final version of this material is scheduled to appear in the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science Vol. 51, to be published in December 2001 by Annual Reviews, http://AnnualReviews.or

Six-body calculation of the alpha-deuteron radiative capture cross section

We have computed the cross section for the process d + alpha -> 6Li + gamma at the low energies relevant for primordial nucleosynthesis and comparison with laboratory data. The final state is a six-body wave function generated by the variational Monte Carlo method from the Argonne v_18 and Urbana IX potentials, including improved treatment of large-particle-separation behavior. The initial state is built up from the alpha-particle and deuteron ground-state solutions for these potentials, with phenomenological descriptions of scattering and cluster distortions. The dominant E2 cross section is in reasonable agreement with the laboratory data. Including center-of-energy and other small corrections, we obtain an E1 contribution which is larger than the measured contribution at 2 MeV by a factor of 7. We calculate explicitly the impulse-approximation M1 contribution, which is expected to be very small, and obtain a result consistent with zero. We find little reason to suspect that the cross section is large enough to produce significant 6Li in the big bang.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, final Phys. Rev. C version, calculation improved over original versio

Polarized proton+4,6,8^{4,6,8}He elastic scattering with breakup effects in the eikonal approximation

We study the elastic scattering of polarized protons from He isotopes. The central and spin-orbit parts of the optical potential are derived using the Glauber theory that can naturally take account of the breakup effect of the He isotopes. Both the differential cross section and the vector analyzing power for $p+^{4,6,8}$He scattering at 71 MeV are in reasonable agreement with experiment. Scattering observables at 300 MeV are predicted. The Pauli blocking effect is examined at 71 MeV.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, published version revised by the erratu

Dependence of two-nucleon momentum densities on total pair momentum

Two-nucleon momentum distributions are calculated for the ground states of 3He and 4He as a function of the nucleons' relative and total momenta. We use variational Monte Carlo wave functions derived from a realistic Hamiltonian with two- and three-nucleon potentials. The momentum distribution of pp pairs is found to be much smaller than that of pn pairs for values of the relative momentum in the range (300--500) MeV/c and vanishing total momentum. However, as the total momentum increases to 400 MeV/c, the ratio of pp to pn pairs in this relative momentum range grows and approaches the limit 1/2 for 3He and 1/4 for 4He, corresponding to the ratio of pp to pn pairs in these nuclei. This behavior should be easily observable in two-nucleon knock-out processes, such as A(e,e'pN).Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure