Nuclear shape coexistence in Po isotopes: An interacting boson model study

Background: The lead region, Po, Pb, Hg, and Pt, shows up the presence of coexisting structures having different deformation and corresponding to different particle-hole configurations in the Shell Model language. Purpose: We intend to study the importance of configuration mixing in the understanding of the nuclear structure of even-even Po isotopes, where the shape coexistence phenomena are not clear enough. Method: We study in detail a long chain of polonium isotopes, 190-208Po, using the interacting boson model with configuration mixing (IBM-CM). We fix the parameters of the Hamiltonians through a least-squares fit to the known energies and absolute B(E2) transition rates of states up to 3 MeV. Results: We obtained the IBM-CM Hamiltonians and we calculate excitation energies, B(E2)'s, electric quadrupole moments, nuclear radii and isotopic shifts, quadrupole shape invariants, wave functions, and deformations. Conclusions: We obtain a good agreement with the experimental data for all the studied observables and we conclude that shape coexistence phenomenon is hidden in Po isotopes, very much as in the case of the Pt isotopes.Comment: To be published in Physical Review C. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1312.459

The influence of intruder states in even-even Po isotopes

We study the role of intruder states and shape coexistence in the even-even $^{190-206}$Po isotopes, through an interacting boson model with configuration mixing calculation. We analyzed the results in the light of known systematics on various observable in the Pb region, paying special attention to the unperturbed energy systematics and quadrupole deformation. We find that shape coexistence in the Po isotopes behaves in very much the same way as in the Pt isotopes, i.e., it is somehow hidden, contrary to the situation in the Pb and the Hg isotopes.Comment: Contribution to the Nuclear Structure and Dynamics 2015 (Portorose, Slovenia) proceeding

Short distance singularities and automatic O(aa) improvement: the cases of the chiral condensate and the topological susceptibility

Short-distance singularities in lattice correlators can modify their Symanzik expansion by leading to additional O($a$) lattice artifacts. At the example of the chiral condensate and the topological susceptibility, we show how to account for these lattice artifacts for Wilson twisted mass fermions and show that the property of automatic O($a$) improvement is preserved at maximal twist.Comment: 12 pages, corrected proof for topological susceptibility, version published in JHE

Topological susceptibility from twisted mass fermions using spectral projectors

We discuss the computation of the topological susceptibility using the method of spectral projectors and dynamical twisted mass fermions. We present our analysis concerning the O(a)-improvement of the topological susceptibility and we show numerical results for Nf=2 and Nf=2+1+1 flavours, performing a study of the quark mass dependence in terms of leading order chiral perturbation theory.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; presented at the 31st International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2013), 29 July - 3 August 2013, Mainz, German

Non-localities and Fermi motion corrections in K−K^- atoms

We evaluate the p-wave $K^-N$ amplitudes from the chiral Lagrangians and from there construct the p-wave part of the $K^-$ nucleus optical potential plus a small s-wave part induced from the elementary p-wave amplitude and the nuclear Fermi motion. Simultaneously, the momentum and energy dependence of the s-wave optical potential, previously developed, are taken into account and shown to generate a small p-wave correction to the optical potential. All the corrections considered are small compared to the leading s-wave potential, and lead to changes in the shifts and widths which are smaller than the experimental errors. A thorough study of the threshold region and low densities is conducted, revealing mathematical problems for which a physical solution is given.Comment: revised version, 28 pages, Latex, 8 postscript figures. Submitted to Nucl. Phys.

Partial dynamical symmetry as a selection criterion for many-body interactions

We propose the use of partial dynamical symmetry (PDS) as a selection criterion for higher-order terms in situations when a prescribed symmetry is obeyed by some states and is strongly broken in others. The procedure is demonstrated in a first systematic classification of many-body interactions with SU(3) PDS that can improve the description of deformed nuclei. As an example, the triaxial features of the nucleus 156Gd are analyzed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Phys. Rev. C, in pres