Multipole tomography of atomic nuclei with symmetry-conserved theories

Abstract

To define the intrinsic reference frame and multipole moments of angular-momentum-$J$-conserving many-body wave functions, we introduce two-body conditional probabilities of finding two nucleons at different positions in space. In this way, quadrupole deformations of states with $J\le 1/2$, which are not accessible via spectroscopic one-body quadrupole moments, can be characterized. We illustrate the method with nuclear density functional theory calculations for $J=0$ states of ${}^{16}$O and ${}^{20}$Ne, the latter obtained by restoring rotational symmetry of prolate or oblate intrinsic configurations. We show that the two-body quadrupole shape characterizations differ from one-body moments obtained from broken-symmetry states.

Comments: 9 pages, 3 figures, submitted version