PaperPanorama

Nuclear Theory·nucl-th

Monday·July 21, 2025

14 papers4 primary·10 cross-listed

  1. 01

    Exploring core excitation in halo nuclei using halo effective field theory: an application to the bound states of Be

    Live-Palm Kubushishi🇩🇪 · Pierre Capel🇩🇪

    Halo effective field theory (Halo-EFT) has proved to be very efficient for describing halo nuclei within models of nuclear reactions. Its order-by-order expansion scheme enables us to single out the structure observables that are probed in reactions, and therefore improve the accuracy of their values inferred from experiment. This formalism is however limited by its breakdown scale. Structure effects beyond that scale cannot be considered explicitly in reaction models. To extend the usual Halo-EFT, we include core excitation considering a particle-rotor model. We apply it to the case of Be, the archetypical one-neutron halo nucleus. The corresponding set of coupled equations is solved using the R-matrix method on a Lagrange mesh. As a first application, we analyze in detail the structure of both bound states of Be and the Be-n phaseshifts at low energy in the corresponding partial wave as a function of the core deformation. We also compute the electric dipole transition between these bound states. The comparison of our results with existing \textit{ab initio} calculations, show that including core excitation within Halo-EFT can significantly improve the description of the ground state of Be over single-particle models. On the contrary, core excitation has a negative effect on the description of the bound excited state. This is probably related to the presence of Pauli-forbidden states in our two-body model of Be.

    nucl-th2 citations
  2. 02

    Equation of state of spin-polarized nuclear matter in the relativistic Hartree-Fock method

    Toi Tachibana🇯🇵 · Kouichi Hagino🇯🇵 · Kenichi Yoshida🇯🇵 · Qiang Zhao🇯🇵

    We calculate the equation of state (EOS) of spin-polarized nuclear matter in the relativistic Hartree-Fock method. To this end, we employ the relativistic point-coupling model, with which the Fock terms are considerably simplified, reducing them to the same form as the Hartree terms. In analogy to the slope parameter of the isospin-symmetry energy for spin-unpolarized matter, we evaluate the spin slope parameter of the corresponding spin-symmetry energy for spin-polarized matter. We find that the slope parameter and the spin slope parameter have a negative correlation in the case of isoscalar polarization, where neutrons and protons are spin-polarized in the same direction. On the other hand, the spin slope parameter is nearly independent of the slope parameter in the case of isovector polarization, where neutrons are spin-polarized along the opposite direction to protons. We show that these correlations are a natural consequence of the relativistic point coupling model which we employ.

    nucl-thPRC(2025)·4 citations
  3. 03

    Comparison of variational quantum eigensolvers in light nuclei

    Miquel Carrasco-Codina🇪🇸 · Emanuele Costa🇪🇸 · Antonio Márquez Romero🇪🇸 · Javier Menéndez🇪🇸 · Arnau Rios🇪🇸

    Quantum computing is one of the most promising technologies of the near future, and the simulation of quantum many-body systems is a natural application. In this work, we present classical simulations of the ground states of light atomic nuclei within the shell, from He to B, calculated within the nuclear shell model. We compare the performance of two leading variational quantum eigensolver algorithms: the Unitary Coupled Cluster (UCC) and the Adaptive Derivative-Assembled Pseudo-Trotter (ADAPT) methods, introducing a new metric to quantify the use of quantum resources in each simulation. We find that Slater determinants are the most useful reference states for both approaches. Our analysis suggests that ADAPT is more efficient for nuclei close to magic numbers, while UCC tends to require fewer resources toward the mid shell. This work lays the groundwork for robust benchmarking of quantum algorithms in nuclear structure studies.

    nucl-thquant-phPRC(2026)·14 citations
  4. 04

    Quantifying neutron-proton interactions in isotones: from NEEC candidate Mo to Cd

    B. Maheshwari🇫🇷 · P. Van Isacker🇫🇷 · P. M. Walker🇬🇧

    We present a shell-model analysis of isotones, Mo, Ru, Pd, and Cd, to quantify the role of neutron-proton interactions in shaping the location and half-life of isomeric states. The study is motivated by the anomalous behavior of the isomeric state in Mo, a prominent candidate for nuclear excitation by electron capture (NEEC), which misses an decay branch due to a higher-lying state and instead proceeds via a long-lived isomeric transition. Employing a consistent configuration space and empirically derived effective interaction, we extract and compare the proton-proton and neutron-proton matrix elements for the four isotones. Our results show a distinct dominance of the neutron-proton interaction in Mo, in contrast to its neighbors--Ru, Pd, and Cd--where no analogous isomeric behavior emerges due to structural evolution. These findings reveal that the favorable structure for NEEC in Mo stems from subtle interaction systematics that do not persist across the chain. We find that the strength of the key NEEC transition is reduced by 40\% compared to the previously estimated value. The analysis provides microscopic insights into the origin of long-lived isomerism in medium-mass nuclei and outlines a framework for identifying future candidates in other mass regions for exploiting the potential energy storage capacities of isomeric states.

    nucl-thPRC(2025)·3 citations

Affiliations

first authorsco-authorsvia INSPIRE