A Relativistic Symmetry in Nuclei: Its origins and consequences

We review the status of quasi-degenerate doublets in nuclei, called pseudospin doublets, which were discovered about thirty years ago and the origins of which have remained a mystery, until recently. We show that pseudospin doublets originate from an SU(2) symmetry of the Dirac Hamiltonian which occurs when the sum of the scalar and vector potentials is a constant. Furthermore, we survey the evidence that pseudospin symmetry is approximately conserved in nuclear spectra and eigenfunctions and in nucleon-nucleus scattering for a Dirac Hamiltonian with realistic nuclear scalar and vector potentials.Comment: Invited Talk for "Nuclei and Nucleons", Darmstadt, Germany, Oct. 11-13,2000; International Symposium on the occasion of Achim Richter's 60th Birthda

Critical Points in Nuclei and Interacting Boson Model Intrinsic States

We consider properties of critical points in the interacting boson model, corresponding to flat-bottomed potentials as encountered in a second-order phase transition between spherical and deformed $\gamma$-unstable nuclei. We show that intrinsic states with an effective $\beta$-deformation reproduce the dynamics of the underlying non-rigid shapes. The effective deformation can be determined from the the global minimum of the energy surface after projection onto the appropriate symmetry. States of fixed $N$ and good O(5) symmetry projected from these intrinsic states provide good analytic estimates to the exact eigenstates, energies and quadrupole transition rates at the critical point.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, Proc. Int. Conf. on "Symmetry in Physics", March 23-30, 2003, Erice, Ital

U(3) and Pseudo-U(3) Symmetry of the Relativistic Harmonic Oscillator

We show that a Dirac Hamiltonian with equal scalar and vector harmonic oscillator potentials has not only a spin symmetry but an U(3) symmetry and that a Dirac Hamiltonian with scalar and vector harmonic oscillator potentials equal in magnitude but opposite in sign has not only a pseudospin symmetry but a pseudo-U(3) symmetry. We derive the generators of the symmetry for each case.Comment: 8 pages, 0 figures, pusblished in Physical Review Letters 95, 252501 (2005

Implications of Pseudospin Symmetry on Relativistic Magnetic Properties and Gamow - Teller Transitions in Nuclei

Recently it has been shown that pseudospin symmetry has its origins in a relativistic symmetry of the Dirac Hamiltonian. Using this symmetry we relate single - nucleon relativistic magnetic moments of states in a pseudospin doublet to the relativistic magnetic dipole transitions between the states in the doublet, and we relate single - nucleon relativistic Gamow - Teller transitions within states in the doublet. We apply these relationships to the Gamow - Teller transitions from $^{39}Ca$ to its mirror nucleus $^{39}K$.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, to be published in PRC. Slightly revised text with one reference adde

A First-Landau-Level Laughlin/Jain Wave Function for the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect

We show that the introduction of a more general closed-shell operator allows one to extend Laughlin's wave function to account for the richer hierarchies (1/3, 2/5, 3/7 ...; 1/5, 2/9, 3/13, ..., etc.) found experimentally. The construction identifies the special hierarchy states with condensates of correlated electron clusters. This clustering implies a single-particle (ls)j algebra within the first Landau level (LL) identical to that of multiply filled LLs in the integer quantum Hall effect. The end result is a simple generalized wave function that reproduces the results of both Laughlin and Jain, without reference to higher LLs or projection.Comment: Revtex. In this replacement we show how to generate the Jain wave function explicitly, by acting with the generalized ls closed-shell operator discussed in the original version. We also walk the reader through a classical 1d caricature of this problem so that he/she can better understand why 2s+1, where s is the spin, should be associated with the number of electrons associated with the underlying clusters or composites. 11 page

Hermitian boson mapping and finite truncation

Starting from a general, microscopic fermion-to-boson mapping that preserves Hermitian conjugation, we discuss truncations of the boson Fock space basis. We give conditions under which the exact boson images of finite fermion operators are also finite (e.g., a 1+2-body fermion Hamiltonian is mapped to a 1+2-body boson Hamiltonian) in the truncated basis. For the most general case, where the image is not necessarily exactly finite, we discuss how to make practical and controlled approximations.Comment: 12 pages in RevTex with no figures, Los Alamos preprint # LA-UR-94-146