Longitudinal response function of 4He with a realistic force

The longitudinal response function of 4He is calculated with the Argonne V18 potential. The comparison with experiment suggests the need of a three-body force. When adding the Urbana IX three-body potential in the calculation of the lower longitudinal multipoles, the total strength is suppressed in the quasi-elastic peak, towards the trend of the experimental data.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (EFB20

Neutrino processes in partially degenerate neutron matter

We investigate neutrino processes for conditions reached in simulations of core-collapse supernovae. Where neutrino-matter interactions play an important role, matter is partially degenerate, and we extend earlier work that addressed the degenerate regime. We derive expressions for the spin structure factor in neutron matter, which is a key quantity required for evaluating rates of neutrino processes. We show that, for essentially all conditions encountered in the post-bounce phase of core-collapse supernovae, it is a very good approximation to calculate the spin relaxation rates in the nondegenerate limit. We calculate spin relaxation rates based on chiral effective field theory interactions and find that they are typically a factor of two smaller than those obtained using the standard one-pion-exchange interaction alone.Comment: 41 pages, 9 figures, NORDITA-2011-116; added comparison figures and fit function for use in simulations, to appear in Astrophys.

Case study: calculation of a narrow resonance with the LIT method

The possibility to resolve narrow structures in reaction cross sections in calculations with the Lorentz integral transform (LIT) method is studied. To this end we consider a fictitious two-nucleon problem with a low-lying and narrow resonance in the $^3P_1$ nucleon-nucleon partial wave and calculate the corresponding ``deuteron photoabsorption cross section''. In the LIT method the use of continuum wave functions is avoided and one works instead with a localized function \tilde\Psi. In this case study it is investigated how far into the asymptotic region \tilde\Psi has to be determined in order to obtain a precise resolution of the artificially introduced E1 resonance. Comparing with the results of a conventional calculation with explicit neutron-proton continuum wave functions it is shown that the LIT approach leads to an excellent reproduction of the cross section in the resonance region and of further finer cross section details at higher energies. To this end, however, for \tilde\Psi one has to take into account two-nucleon distances up to at least 30 fm.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure

Photonuclear sum rules and the tetrahedral configuration of 4^4He

Three well known photonuclear sum rules (SR), i.e. the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn, the bremsstrahlungs and the polarizability SR are calculated for 4He with the realistic nucleon-nucleon potential Argonne V18 and the three-nucleon force Urbana IX. The relation between these sum rules and the corresponding energy weighted integrals of the cross section is discussed. Two additional equivalences for the bremsstrahlungs SR are given, which connect it to the proton-neutron and neutron-neutron distances. Using them, together with our result for the bremsstrahlungs SR, we find a deviation from the tetrahedral symmetry of the spatial configuration of 4He. The possibility to access this deviation experimentally is discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 1 tabl

Effects of three-nucleon forces and two-body currents on Gamow-Teller strengths

We optimize chiral interactions at next-to-next-to leading order to observables in two- and three-nucleon systems, and compute Gamow-Teller transitions in carbon-14, oxygen-22 and oxygen-24 using consistent two-body currents. We compute spectra of the daughter nuclei nitrogen-14, fluorine-22 and fluorine-24 via an isospin-breaking coupled-cluster technique, with several predictions. The two-body currents reduce the Ikeda sum rule, corresponding to a quenching factor q^2 ~ 0.84-0.92 of the axial-vector coupling. The half life of carbon-14 depends on the energy of the first excited 1+ state, the three-nucleon force, and the two-body current

The nuclear electric polarizability of 6He

We present an estimate of the nuclear electric polarizability of the 6He halo nucleus based on six-body microscopic calculations. Wave functions are obtained from semi-realistic two-body interactions using the hyperspherical harmonics expansion method. The polarizability is calculated as a sum rule of the dipole response function using the Lanczos algorithm and also by integrating the photo-absorption cross section calculated via the Lorentz integral transform method. We obtain alpha_E=1.00(14) fm^3, which is much smaller than the published value 1.99(40) fm^3 extracted from experimental data. This points towards a potential disagreement between microscopic theories and experimental observations.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, minor changes, added error analysi

Three-body Force Effects on the Longitudinal Response Function of 4He

In this contribution we summarize recent results on the longitudinal response function of 4He. It is intended to give an important contribution to one of the most interesting and much discussed topics in nuclear physics at present, i.e. the nuclear many-body forces. The longitudinal response is considered as a possible observable, involving many body scattering states, sensitive to the three-nucleon force (3NF). Such a sensitivity is predicted by ab initio calculations performed using the Lorentz Integral transform (LIT) method. The kinematics that are more interesting to measure are discussed