533 research outputs found
Lattice calculations for A=3,4,6,12 nuclei using chiral effective field theory
We present lattice calculations for the ground state energies of tritium,
helium-3, helium-4, lithium-6, and carbon-12 nuclei. Our results were
previously summarized in a letter publication. This paper provides full details
of the calculations. We include isospin-breaking, Coulomb effects, and
interactions up to next-to-next-to-leading order in chiral effective field
theory.Comment: 38 pages, 11 figures, final publication versio
Lattice methods and the nuclear few- and many-body problem
We begin with a brief overview of lattice calculations using chiral effective
field theory and some recent applications. We then describe several methods for
computing scattering on the lattice. After that we focus on the main goal,
explaining the theory and algorithms relevant to lattice simulations of nuclear
few- and many-body systems. We discuss the exact equivalence of four different
lattice formalisms, the Grassmann path integral, transfer matrix operator,
Grassmann path integral with auxiliary fields, and transfer matrix operator
with auxiliary fields. Along with our analysis we include several coding
examples and a number of exercises for the calculations of few- and many-body
systems at leading order in chiral effective field theory.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, Submitted to Lect. Notes Phys., "An advanced
course in computational nuclear physics: Bridging the scales from quarks to
neutron stars", M. Hjorth-Jensen, M. P. Lombardo, U. van Kolck, Editor
Evidence of the Coulomb force effects in the cross sections of the deuteron-proton breakup at 130 MeV
High precision cross-section data of the deuteron-proton breakup reaction at
130 MeV deuteron energy are compared with the theoretical predictions obtained
with a coupled-channel extension of the CD Bonn potential with virtual
Delta-isobar excitation, without and with inclusion of the long-range Coulomb
force. The Coulomb effect is studied on the basis of the cross-section data
set, extended in this work to about 1500 data points by including breakup
geometries characterized by small polar angles of the two protons. The
experimental data clearly prefer predictions obtained with the Coulomb
interaction included. The strongest effects are observed in regions in which
the relative energy of the two protons is the smallest.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physics Letters
Fiber Tracts Anomalies in APPxPS1 Transgenic Mice Modeling Alzheimer's Disease
Amyloid beta (Aβ) peptides are known to accumulate in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the link between brain amyloidosis and clinical symptoms has not been elucidated and could be mediated by secondary neuropathological alterations such as fiber tracts anomalies. In the present study, we have investigated the impact of Aβ overproduction in APPxPS1 transgenic mice on the integrity of forebrain axonal bundles (corpus callosum and anterior commissure). We found evidence of fiber tract volume reductions in APPxPS1 mice that were associated with an accelerated age-related loss of axonal neurofilaments and a myelin breakdown. The severity of these defects was neither correlated with the density of amyloid plaques nor associated with cell neurodegeneration. Our data suggest that commissural fiber tract alterations are present in Aβ-overproducing transgenic mice and that intracellular Aβ accumulation preceding extracellular deposits may act as a trigger of such morphological anomalies
Gauge invariance in the presence of a cutoff
We use the method of gauging equations to construct the electromagnetic
current operator for the two-nucleon system in a theory with a finite cutoff.
The employed formulation ensures that the two-nucleon T-matrix and
corresponding five-point function, in the cutoff theory, are identical to the
ones formally defined by a reference theory without a cutoff. A feature of our
approach is that it effectively introduces a cutoff into the reference theory
in a way that maintains the long-range part of the exchange current operator;
for applications to effective field theory (EFT), this property is usually
sufficient to guarantee the predictive power of the resulting cutoff theory. In
addition, our approach leads to Ward-Takahashi (WT) identities that are linear
in the interactions.
From the point of view of EFT's where such a WT identity is satisfied in the
reference theory, this ensures that gauge invariance in the cutoff theory is
maintained order by order in the expansion.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
Reconciling threshold and subthreshold expansions for pion-nucleon scattering
Heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) at one loop fails in relating
the pion-nucleon amplitude in the physical region and for subthreshold
kinematics due to loop effects enhanced by large low-energy constants. Studying
the chiral convergence of threshold and subthreshold parameters up to fourth
order in the small-scale expansion, we address the question to what extent this
tension can be mitigated by including the as an explicit degree
of freedom and/or using a covariant formulation of baryon ChPT. We find that
the inclusion of the indeed reduces the low-energy constants to more
natural values and thereby improves consistency between threshold and
subthreshold kinematics. In addition, even in the -less theory the
resummation of corrections in the covariant scheme improves the results
markedly over the heavy-baryon formulation, in line with previous observations
in the single-baryon sector of ChPT that so far have evaded a profound
theoretical explanation.Comment: 10 pages, 4 tables, Mathematica notebook with the analytic
expressions for threshold and subthreshold parameters included as
supplementary material; journal versio
Lattice Simulations for Light Nuclei: Chiral Effective Field Theory at Leading Order
We discuss lattice simulations of light nuclei at leading order in chiral
effective field theory. Using lattice pion fields and auxiliary fields, we
include the physics of instantaneous one-pion exchange and the leading-order
S-wave contact interactions. We also consider higher-derivative contact
interactions which adjust the S-wave scattering amplitude at higher momenta. By
construction our lattice path integral is positive definite in the limit of
exact Wigner SU(4) symmetry for any even number of nucleons. This SU(4)
positivity and the approximate SU(4) symmetry of the low-energy interactions
play an important role in suppressing sign and phase oscillations in Monte
Carlo simulations. We assess the computational scaling of the lattice algorithm
for light nuclei with up to eight nucleons and analyze in detail calculations
of the deuteron, triton, and helium-4.Comment: 44 pages, 15 figure
Ab initio alpha-alpha scattering
Processes involving alpha particles and alpha-like nuclei comprise a major
part of stellar nucleosynthesis and hypothesized mechanisms for thermonuclear
supernovae. In an effort towards understanding alpha processes from first
principles, we describe in this letter the first ab initio calculation of
alpha-alpha scattering. We use lattice effective field theory to describe the
low-energy interactions of nucleons and apply a technique called the adiabatic
projection method to reduce the eight-body system to an effective two-cluster
system. We find good agreement between lattice results and experimental phase
shifts for S-wave and D-wave scattering. The computational scaling with
particle number suggests that alpha processes involving heavier nuclei are also
within reach in the near future.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Resonance saturation for four-nucleon operators
In the modern description of nuclear forces based on chiral effective field
theory, four-nucleon operators with unknown coupling constants appear. These
couplings can be fixed by a fit to the low partial waves of neutron-proton
scattering. We show that the so determined numerical values can be understood
on the basis of phenomenological one-boson-exchange models. We also extract
these values from various modern high accuracy nucleon-nucleon potentials and
demonstrate their consistency and remarkable agreement with the values in the
chiral effective field theory approach. This paves the way for estimating the
low-energy constants of operators with more nucleon fields and/or external
probes.Comment: 16 pp, REVTeX, 3 figure
Accurate Charge-Dependent Nucleon-Nucleon Potential at Fourth Order of Chiral Perturbation Theory
We present the first nucleon-nucleon potential at
next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (fourth order) of chiral perturbation
theory. Charge-dependence is included up to next-to-leading order of the
isospin-violation scheme. The accuracy for the reproduction of the NN data
below 290 MeV lab. energy is comparable to the one of phenomenological
high-precision potentials. Since NN potentials of order three and less are
known to be deficient in quantitative terms, the present work shows that the
fourth order is necessary and sufficient for a reliable NN potential derived
from chiral effective Lagrangians. The new potential provides a promising
starting point for exact few-body calculations and microscopic nuclear
structure theory (including chiral many-body forces derived on the same
footing).Comment: 4 pages Revtex including one figur
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