The long journey from the giant-monopole resonance to the nuclear-matter incompressibility

Differences in the density dependence of the symmetry energy predicted by nonrelativistic and relativistic models are suggested, at least in part, as the culprit for the discrepancy in the values of the compression modulus of symmetric nuclear matter extracted from the energy of the giant monopole resonance in 208Pb. ``Best-fit'' relativistic models, with stiffer symmetry energies than Skyrme interactions, consistently predict higher compression moduli than nonrelativistic approaches. Relativistic models with compression moduli in the physically acceptable range of K=200-300 MeV are used to compute the distribution of isoscalar monopole strength in 208Pb. When the symmetry energy is artificially softened in one of these models, in an attempt to simulate the symmetry energy of Skyrme interactions, a lower value for the compression modulus is indeed obtained. It is concluded that the proposed measurement of the neutron skin in 208Pb, aimed at constraining the density dependence of the symmetry energy and recently correlated to the structure of neutron stars, will also become instrumental in the determination of the compression modulus of nuclear matter.Comment: 9 pages with 2 (eps) figure

Exudative pharyngitis possibly due to Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum, a new challenge in the differential diagnosis of diphtheria.

Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum has rarely been reported to cause disease in humans, despite its common presence in the flora of the upper respiratory tract. We report here a case of exudative pharyngitis with pseudomembrane possibly caused by C. pseudodiphtheriticum in a 4-year-old girl. The case initially triggered clinical and laboratory suspicion of diphtheria. Because C. pseudodiphtheriticum can be easily confused with Corynebacterium diphtheriae in Gram stain, clarification of its role in the pathogenesis of exudative pharyngitis in otherwise healthy persons is of public health importance. Simple and rapid screening tests to differentiate C. pseudodiphtheriticum from C. diphtheriae should be performed to prevent unnecessary concern in the community and unnecessary outbreak control measures

On Properties of the Isoscalar Giant Dipole Resonance

Main properties (strength function, energy-dependent transition density, branching ratios for direct nucleon decay) of the isoscalar giant dipole resonance in several medium-heavy mass spherical nuclei are described within a continuum-RPA approach, taking into account the smearing effect. All model parameters used in the calculations are taken from independent data. Calculation results are compared with available experimental data.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Conductance anomalies in quantum wires

We study the conductance threshold of clean nearly straight quantum wires in the magnetic field. As a quantitative example we solve exactly the scattering problem for two-electrons in a wire with planar geometry and a weak bulge. From the scattering matrix we determine conductance via the Landauer-Buettiker formalism. The conductance anomalies found near 0.25(2e^2/h) and 0.75(2e^2/h) are related to a singlet resonance and a triplet resonance, respectively, and survive to temperatures of a few degrees. With increasing in-plane magnetic field the conductance exhibits a plateau at e^2/h, consistent with recent experiments.Comment: Quantum wire with planar geometry; in-plane magnetic fiel

Commercial Feeding Stuffs September 1, 1922, to August 31, 1923.

134 p

Self-consistent description of nuclear compressional modes

Isoscalar monopole and dipole compressional modes are computed for a variety of closed-shell nuclei in a relativistic random-phase approximation to three different parametrizations of the Walecka model with scalar self-interactions. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of self-consistency which by itself, and with little else, guarantees the decoupling of the spurious isoscalar-dipole strength from the physical response and the conservation of the vector current. A powerful new relation is introduced to quantify the violation of the vector current in terms of various ground-state form-factors. For the isoscalar-dipole mode two distinct regions are clearly identified: (i) a high-energy component that is sensitive to the size of the nucleus and scales with the compressibility of the model and (ii) a low-energy component that is insensitivity to the nuclear compressibility. A fairly good description of both compressional modes is obtained by using a ``soft'' parametrization having a compression modulus of K=224 MeV.Comment: 28 pages and 10 figures; submitted to PR

Commercial Feeding Stuffs, September 1, 1923 to August 31, 1924.

157 p

Collective excitations in the Unitary Correlation Operator Method and relativistic QRPA studies of exotic nuclei

The collective excitation phenomena in atomic nuclei are studied in two different formulations of the Random Phase Approximation (RPA): (i) RPA based on correlated realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions constructed within the Unitary Correlation Operator Method (UCOM), and (ii) relativistic RPA (RRPA) derived from effective Lagrangians with density-dependent meson-exchange interactions. The former includes the dominant interaction-induced short-range central and tensor correlations by means of an unitary transformation. It is shown that UCOM-RPA correlations induced by collective nuclear vibrations recover a part of the residual long-range correlations that are not explicitly included in the UCOM Hartree-Fock ground state. Both RPA models are employed in studies of the isoscalar monopole resonance (ISGMR) in closed-shell nuclei across the nuclide chart, with an emphasis on the sensitivity of its properties on the constraints for the range of the UCOM correlation functions. Within the Relativistic Quasiparticle RPA (RQRPA) based on Relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov model, the occurrence of pronounced low-lying dipole excitations is predicted in nuclei towards the proton drip-line. From the analysis of the transition densities and the structure of the RQRPA amplitudes, it is shown that these states correspond to the proton pygmy dipole resonance.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physics of Atomic Nuclei, conference proceedings, "Frontiers in the Physics of Nucleus", St. Petersburg, 28. June-1. July, 200

Nuclear matter incompressibility coefficient in relativistic and nonrelativistic microscopic models

We systematically analyze the recent claim that nonrelativistic and relativistic mean field (RMF) based random phase approximation (RPA) calculations for the centroid energy E_0 of the isoscalar giant monopole resonance yield for the nuclear matter incompressibility coefficient, K_{nm}, values which differ by about 20%. For an appropriate comparison with the RMF based RPA calculations, we obtain the parameters for the Skyrme force used in the nonrelativistic model by adopting the same procedure as employed in the determination of the NL3 parameter set of an effective Lagrangian used in the RMF model. Our investigation suggest that the discrepancy between the values of K_{nm} predicted by the relativistic and nonrelativistic models is significantly less than 20%.Comment: Revtex file (13 pages), appearing in PRC-Rapid Com

Isoscalar Giant Dipole Resonance and Nuclear Matter Incompressibility Coefficient

We present results of microscopic calculations of the strength function, S(E), and alpha-particle excitation cross sections sigma(E) for the isoscalar giant dipole resonance (ISGDR). An accurate and a general method to eliminate the contributions of spurious state mixing is presented and used in the calculations. Our results provide a resolution to the long standing problem that the nuclear matter incompressibility coefficient, K, deduced from sigma(E) data for the ISGDR is significantly smaller than that deduced from data for the isoscalar giant monopole resonance (ISGMR).Comment: 4 pages using revtex 3.0, 3 postscript figures created by Mathematica 4.