Cooperative damping mechanism of the resonance in the nuclear photoabsorption

We propose a resonance damping mechanism to explain the disappearance of the peaks around the position of the resonances higher than the $\Delta$ resonance in the nuclear photoabsorption. This phenomenon is understood by taking into account the cooperative effect of the collision broadening of $\Delta$ and $N^{*}$, the pion distortion and the interference in the two-pion photoproduction processes in the nuclear medium.Comment: 11 pages, uses revtex.sty. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Nuclear Photoabsorption at Photon Energies between 300 and 850 Mev

We construct the formula for the photonuclear total absorption cross section using the projection method and the unitarity relation. Our treatment is very effective when interference effects in the absorption processes on a nucleon are strong. The disappearance of the peak around the position of the $D_{13}$ resonance in the nuclear photoabsorption can be explained with the cooperative effect of the interference in two-pion production processes,the Fermi motion, the collision broadenings of $\Delta$ and $N^*$, and the pion distortion in the nuclear medium. The change of the interference effect by the medium plays an important role.Comment: 22pages,7figures,revtex

Photofission of heavy nuclei at energies up to 4 GeV

Total photofission cross sections for 238U, 235U, 233U, 237Np, 232Th, and natPb have been measured simultaneously, using tagged photons in the energy range Egamma=0.17-3.84 GeV. This was the first experiment performed using the Photon Tagging Facility in Hall B at Jefferson Lab. Our results show that the photofission cross section for 238U relative to that for 237Np is about 80%, implying the presence of important processes that compete with fission. We also observe that the relative photofission cross sections do not depend strongly on the incident photon energy over this entire energy range. If we assume that for 237Np the photofission probability is equal to unity, we observe a significant shadowing effect starting below 1.5 GeV.Comment: 4 pages of RevTex, 6 postscript figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Photofission and Quasi-Deuteron-Nuclear State as Mixing of Bosons and Fermions

The empirical-phenomenological quasi-deuteron photofission description is theoretically justified within the semiclassical, intermediate statistics model. The transmutational fermion (nucleon) - boson (quasi-deuteron) potential plays an essential role in the present context and is expressed in terms of thermodynamical and of microscopical quantities, analogous to those commonly used in the superfluid nuclear model.Comment: 7 pages, RevTex, to appear in Zeit. f. Phys.

The Role of Nucleons in Electromagnetic Emission Rates

Electromagnetic emission rates from a thermalized hadronic gas are important for the interpretation of dilepton signals from heavy-ion collisions. Although there is a consensus in the literature about rates for a pure meson gas, qualitative differences appear with a finite baryon density. We show this to be essentially due to the way in which the pi-N background is treated in regards to the nucleon resonances. Using a background constrained by unitarity and broken chiral symmetry, it is emphasized that the thermalized hadronic gas can be considered dilute.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, minor change

Bloom-Gilman duality of inelastic structure functions in nucleon and nuclei

The Bloom-Gilman local duality of the inelastic structure function of the proton, the deuteron and light complex nuclei is investigated using available experimental data in the squared four-momentum transfer range from 0.3 to 5 (GeV/c)**2. The results of our analysis suggest that the onset of the Bloom-Gilman local duality is anticipated in complex nuclei with respect to the case of the protonand the deuteron. A possible interpretation of this result in terms of a rescaling effect is discussed with particular emphasis to the possibility of reproducing the damping of the nucleon-resonance transitions observed in recent electroproduction data off nuclei.Comment: revised version, to appear in Physical Review

The First Stars

The first stars to form in the Universe -- the so-called Population III stars -- bring an end to the cosmological Dark Ages, and exert an important influence on the formation of subsequent generations of stars and on the assembly of the first galaxies. Developing an understanding of how and when the first Population III stars formed and what their properties were is an important goal of modern astrophysical research. In this review, I discuss our current understanding of the physical processes involved in the formation of Population III stars. I show how we can identify the mass scale of the first dark matter halos to host Population III star formation, and discuss how gas undergoes gravitational collapse within these halos, eventually reaching protostellar densities. I highlight some of the most important physical processes occurring during this collapse, and indicate the areas where our current understanding remains incomplete. Finally, I discuss in some detail the behaviour of the gas after the formation of the first Population III protostar. I discuss both the conventional picture, where the gas does not undergo further fragmentation and the final stellar mass is set by the interplay between protostellar accretion and protostellar feedback, and also the recently advanced picture in which the gas does fragment and where dynamical interactions between fragments have an important influence on the final distribution of stellar masses.Comment: 72 pages, 4 figures. Book chapter to appear in "The First Galaxies - Theoretical Predictions and Observational Clues", 2012 by Springer, eds. V. Bromm, B. Mobasher, T. Wiklin