Hypernuclear structure from gamma-ray spectroscopy

The energies of p-shell hypernuclear gamma rays obtained from recent experiments using the Hyperball at BNL and KEK are used to constrain the YN interaction which enters into shell-model calculations that include both Lambda and Sigma configurations.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; HYP2003, Jefferson Lab, October 14-18, 2003; proceedings to appear in Nuclear Physics

In-medium chiral SU(3) dynamics and hypernuclear structure

A previously introduced relativistic energy density functional, successfully applied to ordinary nuclei, is extended to hypernuclei. The density-dependent mean field and the spin-orbit potential are consistently calculated for a $\Lambda$ hyperon in the nucleus using the SU(3) extension of in-medium chiral perturbation theory. The leading long range $\Lambda N$ interaction arises from kaon-exchange and $2\pi$-exchange with $\Sigma$ hyperon in the intermediate state. Scalar and vector mean fields reflecting in-medium changes of the quark condensates are constrained by QCD sum rules. The model, applied to oxygen as a test case, describes spectroscopic data in good agreement with experiment. In particular, the smallness of the $\Lambda$ spin-orbit interaction finds a natural explanation in terms of an almost complete cancellation between scalar-vector background contributions and long-range terms generated by two-pion exchange.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, elsart class. Minor revision

Cluster models of Lambda-Lambda-6He and Lambda-9Be hypernuclei

Configuration space Faddeev calculations are performed for the binding energy of Lambda-Lambda-6He and Lambda-9Be bound states, here considered as alpha-Lambda-Lambda and alpha-alpha-Lambda clusters respectively, in order to study the dependence of the calculated binding energy on the alpha-Lambda potential input. For Lambda-Lambda-6He, using realistic interactions, the uncertainty in extracting the Lambda-Lambda S=L=0 interaction strength does not exceed 0.1 MeV, which is a fraction of the order of magnitude derived for other theoretical uncertainties. For Lambda-9Be, the dependence of the calculated binding energy on the alpha-Lambda potential is considerably larger, of order 1 MeV. Our results for Lambda-9Be suggest that the odd-state alpha-Lambda interaction is substantially reduced with respect to the even-state component.Comment: 16 pages, including 4 figures, typos corrected, slightly revised, accepted to Nuclear Physics