Low-energy enhancement in the magnetic dipole $γ$-ray strength functions of heavy nuclei

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fanto, P., Alhassid, Y.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913258922835968
author Fanto, P.
Alhassid, Y.
author_facet Fanto, P.
Alhassid, Y.
contents A low-energy enhancement (LEE), observed experimentally in the $γ$-ray strength function ($γ$SF) describing the decay of compound nuclei, would have profound effects on $r$-process nucleosynthesis if it persists in heavy neutron-rich nuclei. The LEE was shown to be a feature of the magnetic dipole ($M1)$ strength function in configuration-interaction shell-model calculations in medium-mass nuclei. However, its existence in heavy nuclei and its evolution with neutron number remain open questions. Here, using a combination of many-body methods, we find the LEE in the $M1$ $γ$SFs of heavy samarium nuclei. In particular, we use the static-path plus random-phase approximation (SPA+RPA), which includes static and small-amplitude quantal fluctuations beyond the mean field. Using the SPA+RPA strength as a prior, we apply the maximum-entropy method (MEM) to obtain finite-temperature $M1$ $γ$SFs from exact imaginary-time response functions calculated with the shell model Monte Carlo (SMMC) method. We find that the slope of the LEE in samarium isotopes is roughly independent of the average initial energy over a wide range below the neutron separation energy. As the neutron number increases, strength transfers to a low-energy excitation, which we interpret as the scissors mode built on top of excited states.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2112_13772
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Low-energy enhancement in the magnetic dipole $γ$-ray strength functions of heavy nuclei
Fanto, P.
Alhassid, Y.
Nuclear Theory
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
A low-energy enhancement (LEE), observed experimentally in the $γ$-ray strength function ($γ$SF) describing the decay of compound nuclei, would have profound effects on $r$-process nucleosynthesis if it persists in heavy neutron-rich nuclei. The LEE was shown to be a feature of the magnetic dipole ($M1)$ strength function in configuration-interaction shell-model calculations in medium-mass nuclei. However, its existence in heavy nuclei and its evolution with neutron number remain open questions. Here, using a combination of many-body methods, we find the LEE in the $M1$ $γ$SFs of heavy samarium nuclei. In particular, we use the static-path plus random-phase approximation (SPA+RPA), which includes static and small-amplitude quantal fluctuations beyond the mean field. Using the SPA+RPA strength as a prior, we apply the maximum-entropy method (MEM) to obtain finite-temperature $M1$ $γ$SFs from exact imaginary-time response functions calculated with the shell model Monte Carlo (SMMC) method. We find that the slope of the LEE in samarium isotopes is roughly independent of the average initial energy over a wide range below the neutron separation energy. As the neutron number increases, strength transfers to a low-energy excitation, which we interpret as the scissors mode built on top of excited states.
title Low-energy enhancement in the magnetic dipole $γ$-ray strength functions of heavy nuclei
topic Nuclear Theory
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.13772