5,197 research outputs found
Warm dark matter sterile neutrinos in electron capture and beta decay spectra
We briefly review the motivation to search for sterile neutrinos in the keV
mass scale, as dark matter candidates, and the prospects to find them in beta
decay or electron capture spectra, with a global perspective. We describe the
fundamentals of the neutrino flavor-mass eigenstate mismatch that opens the
possibility of detecting sterile neutrinos in such ordinary nuclear processes.
Results are shown and discussed for the effect of heavy neutrino emission in
electron capture in Holmium 163 and in two isotopes of Lead, 202 and 205, as
well as in the beta decay of Tritium. We study the de-excitation spectrum in
the considered cases of electron capture and the charged lepton spectrum in the
case of Tritium beta decay. For each of these cases, we define ratios of
integrated transition rates over different regions of the spectrum under study,
and give new results that may guide and facilitate the analysis of possible
future measurements, paying particular attention to forbidden transitions in
Lead isotopes.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 2 table
Generic ordering of structural transitions in quasi-one-dimensional Wigner crystals
We investigate the dependence of the structural phase transitions in an
infinite quasi-one-dimensional system of repulsively interacting particles on
the profile of the confining channel. Three different functional expressions
for the confinement potential related to real experimental systems are used
that can be tuned continuously from a parabolic to a hard-wall potential in
order to find a thorough understanding of the ordering of the chain-like
structure transitions. We resolve the longstanding issue why the most theories
predicted a 1-2-4-3-4 sequence of chain configurations with increasing density,
while some experiments found the 1-2-3-4 sequence.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Spin dependent Momentum Distributions in Deformed Nuclei
We study the properties of the spin dependent one body density in momentum
space for odd--A polarized deformed nuclei within the mean field approximation.
We derive analytic expressions connecting intrinsic and laboratory momentum
distributions. The latter are related to observable transition densities in
{\bf p}--space that can be probed in one nucleon knock--out reactions from
polarized targets. It is shown that most of the information contained in the
intrinsic spin dependent momentum distribution is lost when the nucleus is not
polarized. Results are presented and discussed for two prolate nuclei,
Ne and Mg, and for one oblate nucleus, Ar. The effects of
deformation are highlighted by comparison to the case of odd--A nuclei in the
spherical model.Comment: Latex 2.09. 25 pages and 6 figures (available from
[email protected]), to appear in Ann. of Phy
Ground-state properties and symmetry energy of neutron-rich and neutron-deficient Mg isotopes
A comprehensive study of various ground-state properties of neutron-rich and
neutron-deficient Mg isotopes with =20-36 is performed in the framework of
the self-consistent deformed Skyrme-Hartree-Fock plus BCS method. The
correlation between the skin thickness and the characteristics related with the
density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy is investigated for this
isotopic chain following the theoretical approach based on the coherent density
fluctuation model and using the Brueckner energy-density functional. The
results of the calculations show that the behavior of the nuclear charge radii
and the nuclear symmetry energy in the Mg isotopic chain is closely related to
the nuclear deformation. We also study, within our theoretical scheme, the
emergence of an "island of inversion" at neutron-rich Mg nucleus, that
was recently proposed from the analyses of spectroscopic measurements of
Mg low-lying energy spectrum and the charge rms radii of all magnesium
isotopes in the shell.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, to be published in Physical Review
Structural transitions in vertically and horizontally coupled parabolic channels of Wigner crystals
Structural phase transitions in two vertically or horizontally coupled
channels of strongly interacting particles are investigated. The particles are
free to move in the -direction but are confined by a parabolic potential in
the -direction. They interact with each other through a screened power-law
potential (). In vertically coupled systems the channels
are stacked above each other in the direction perpendicular to the
-plane, while in horizontally coupled systems both channels are aligned
in the confinement direction. Using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations we obtain the
ground state configurations and the structural transitions as a function of the
linear particle density and the separation between the channels. At zero
temperature the vertically coupled system exhibits a rich phase diagram with
continuous and discontinuous transitions. On the other hand the vertically
coupled system exhibits only a very limited number of phase transitions due to
its symmetry. Further we calculated the normal modes for the Wigner crystals in
both cases. From MC simulations we found that in the case of vertically coupled
systems the zigzag transition is only possible for low densities. A
Ginzburg-Landau theory for the zigzag transition is presented, which predicts
correctly the behavior of this transition from which we interpret the
structural phase transition of the Wigner crystal through the reduction of the
Brillouin zone.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figure
Magnetic particles confined in a modulated channel: structural transitions tunable by tilting a magnetic field
The ground state of colloidal magnetic particles in a modulated channel are
investigated as function of the tilt angle of an applied magnetic field. The
particles are confined by a parabolic potential in the transversal direction
while in the axial direction a periodic substrate potential is present. By
using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, we construct a phase diagram for the
different crystal structures as a function of the magnetic field orientation,
strength of the modulated potential and the commensurability factor of the
system. Interestingly, we found first and second order phase transitions
between different crystal structures, which can be manipulated by the
orientation of the external magnetic field. A re-entrant behavior is found
between two- and four-chain configurations, with continuous second order
transitions. Novel configurations are found consisting of frozen in solitons.
By changing the orientation and/or strength of the magnetic field and/or the
strength and the spatial frequency of the periodic substrate potential, the
system transits through different phases.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. E (10 pages, 12 figures
- …