Nuclear Reactions: A Challenge for Few- and Many-Body Theory

A current interest in nuclear reactions, specifically with rare isotopes concentrates on their reaction with neutrons, in particular neutron capture. In order to facilitate reactions with neutrons one must use indirect methods using deuterons as beam or target of choice. For adding neutrons, the most common reaction is the (d,p) reaction, in which the deuteron breaks up and the neutron is captured by the nucleus. Those (d,p) reactions may be viewed as a three-body problem in a many-body context. This contribution reports on a feasibility study for describing phenomenological nucleon-nucleus optical potentials in momentum space in a separable form, so that they may be used for Faddeev calculations of (d,p) reactions.Comment: to appear in the Proceedings of HITES 2012: Conference on `Horizons of Innovative Theories, Experiments, and Supercomputing in Nuclear Physics', June 4-7, 2012, New Orleans, Louisian

Ab initio Translationally Invariant Nonlocal One-body Densities from No-core Shell-model Theory

[Background:] It is well known that effective nuclear interactions are in general nonlocal. Thus if nuclear densities obtained from {\it ab initio} no-core-shell-model (NCSM) calculations are to be used in reaction calculations, translationally invariant nonlocal densities must be available. [Purpose:] Though it is standard to extract translationally invariant one-body local densities from NCSM calculations to calculate local nuclear observables like radii and transition amplitudes, the corresponding nonlocal one-body densities have not been considered so far. A major reason for this is that the procedure for removing the center-of-mass component from NCSM wavefunctions up to now has only been developed for local densities. [Results:] A formulation for removing center-of-mass contributions from nonlocal one-body densities obtained from NCSM and symmetry-adapted NCSM (SA-NCSM) calculations is derived, and applied to the ground state densities of $^4$He, $^6$Li, $^{12}$C, and $^{16}$O. The nonlocality is studied as a function of angular momentum components in momentum as well as coordinate space [Conclusions:] We find that the nonlocality for the ground state densities of the nuclei under consideration increases as a function of the angular momentum. The relative magnitude of those contributions decreases with increasing angular momentum. In general, the nonlocal structure of the one-body density matrices we studied is given by the shell structure of the nucleus, and can not be described with simple functional forms.Comment: 13 pages, 11 Figure

Ab initio Folding Potentials for Nucleon-Nucleus Scattering based on NCSM One-Body Densities

Calculating microscopic optical potentials for elastic nucleon-nucleus scattering has already led to large body of work in the past. For folding first-order calculations the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction and the one-body density of the nucleus were taken as input to rigorous calculations in a spectator expansion of the multiple scattering series. Based on the Watson expansion of the multiple scattering series we employ a nonlocal translationally invariant nuclear density derived from a chiral next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) and the very same interaction for consistent full-folding calculation of the effective (optical) potential for nucleon-nucleus scattering for light nuclei. We calculate scattering observables, such as total, reaction, and differential cross sections as well as the analyzing power and the spin-rotation parameter, for elastic scattering of protons and neutrons from $^4$He, $^{6}$He, $^{12}$C, and $^{16}$O, in the energy regime between 100 and 200~MeV projectile kinetic energy, and compare to available data. Our calculations show that the effective nucleon-nucleus potential obtained from the first-order term in the spectator expansion of the multiple scattering expansion describes experiments very well to about 60 degrees in the center-of-mass frame, which coincides roughly with the validity of the NNLO chiral interaction used to calculate both the NN amplitudes and the one-body nuclear density.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures, 1 tabl

A new way to perform partial wave decompositions of few-nucleon forces

We formulate a general and exact method of partial wave decomposition (PWD) of any nucleon-nucleon (NN) potential and any three-nucleon (3N) force. The approach allows one to efficiently use symbolic algebra software to generate the interaction dependent part of the program code calculating the interaction. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach for the one-boson exchange BonnB potential, a recent nucleon-nucleon chiral force and the chiral two-pion-exchange three-nucleon force. In all cases very good agreement between the new and the traditional PWD is found. The automated PWD offered by the new approach is of the utmost importance in view of future applications of numerous chiral N3LO contributions to the 3N force in three nucleon calculations.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures (24 eps files

Effective Potential of a Black Hole in Thermal Equilibrium with Quantum Fields

Expectation values of one-loop renormalized thermal equilibrium stress-energy tensors of free conformal scalars, spin-${1 \over 2}$ fermions and U(1) gauge fields on a Schwarzschild black hole background are used as sources in the semi-classical Einstein equation. The back-reaction and new equilibrium metric are solved for at $O({\hbar})$ for each spin field. The nature of the modified black hole spacetime is revealed through calculations of the effective potential for null and timelike orbits. Significant novel features affecting the motions of both massive and massless test particles show up at lowest order in $\epsilon= (M_{Pl}/M)^2 < 1$, where $M$ is the renormalized black hole mass, and $M_{Pl}$ is the Planck mass. Specifically, we find the tendency for \underline{stable} circular photon orbits, an increase in the black hole capture cross sections, and the existence of a gravitationally repulsive region associated with the black hole which is generated from the U(1) back-reaction. We also consider the back-reaction arising from multiple fields, which will be useful for treating a black hole in thermal equilibrium with field ensembles belonging to gauge theories.Comment: 25 pages (not including seven figures), VAND-TH-93-6. Typed in Latex, uses RevTex macro

Positivity of Entropy in the Semi-Classical Theory of Black Holes and Radiation

Quantum stress-energy tensors of fields renormalized on a Schwarzschild background violate the classical energy conditions near the black hole. Nevertheless, the associated equilibrium thermodynamical entropy $\Delta S$ by which such fields augment the usual black hole entropy is found to be positive. More precisely, the derivative of $\Delta S$ with respect to radius, at fixed black hole mass, is found to vanish at the horizon for {\it all} regular renormalized stress-energy quantum tensors. For the cases of conformal scalar fields and U(1) gauge fields, the corresponding second derivative is positive, indicating that $\Delta S$ has a local minimum there. Explicit calculation shows that indeed $\Delta S$ increases monotonically for increasing radius and is positive. (The same conclusions hold for a massless spin 1/2 field, but the accuracy of the stress-energy tensor we employ has not been confirmed, in contrast to the scalar and vector cases). None of these results would hold if the back-reaction of the radiation on the spacetime geometry were ignored; consequently, one must regard $\Delta S$ as arising from both the radiation fields and their effects on the gravitational field. The back-reaction, no matter how "small",Comment: 19 pages, RevTe

Energy Dependence of the NN t-matrix in the Optical Potential for Elastic Nucleon-Nucleus Scattering

The influence of the energy dependence of the free NN t-matrix on the optical potential of nucleon-nucleus elastic scattering is investigated within the context of a full-folding model based on the impulse approximation. The treatment of the pole structure of the NN t-matrix, which has to be taken into account when integrating to negative energies is described in detail. We calculate proton-nucleus elastic scattering observables for $^{16}$O, $^{40}$Ca, and $^{208}$Pb between 65 and 200 MeV laboratory energy and study the effect of the energy dependence of the NN t-matrix. We compare this result with experiment and with calculations where the center-of-mass energy of the NN t-matrix is fixed at half the projectile energy. It is found that around 200 MeV the fixed energy approximation is a very good representation of the full calculation, however deviations occur when going to lower energies (65 MeV).Comment: 11 pages (revtex), 6 postscript figure

3N Scattering in a Three-Dimensional Operator Formulation

A recently developed formulation for a direct treatment of the equations for two- and three-nucleon bound states as set of coupled equations of scalar functions depending only on vector momenta is extended to three-nucleon scattering. Starting from the spin-momentum dependence occurring as scalar products in two- and three-nucleon forces together with other scalar functions, we present the Faddeev multiple scattering series in which order by order the spin-degrees can be treated analytically leading to 3D integrations over scalar functions depending on momentum vectors only. Such formulation is especially important in view of awaiting extension of 3N Faddeev calculations to projectile energies above the pion production threshold and applications of chiral perturbation theory 3N forces, which are to be most efficiently treated directly in such three-dimensional formulation without having to expand these forces into a partial wave basis.Comment: 25 pages, 0 figure

Ab initio Folding Potentials for Proton-Nucleus Scattering with NCSM Nonlocal One-Body Densities

Based on the spectator expansion of the multiple scattering series we employ a nonlocal translationally invariant nuclear density derived from a chiral next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) and the very same interaction for consistent full-folding calculations of the effective (optical) potential for nucleon-nucleus scattering for light nuclei