arXiv subjects

P. Capel

Publications and source records attributed to P. Capel.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

First Experimental Test of the Ratio Method

The ratio is a new reaction observable suggested to extract accurately structure information on halo nuclei. It corresponds to the ratio of differential cross sections for scattering and breakup, which is predicted to remove the uncertainty related to the reaction dynamics. We present here the first experimental test of the method for the 11Be + 12C collision at ELab = 20A MeV performed at Texas A&M University. Differential cross sections for scattering and inclusive one-neutron breakup have been measured with the new detector array BlueSTEAl. The ratio of cross sections is very smooth and independent of the projectile-target interaction, which demonstrates the validity of the ratio method. We extend our analysis to existing 11Be + 208Pb data, confirming that the method works well on any target.

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arXiv2024

First experimental test of the ratio method for nuclear-reaction analysis

Nuclear halos are very exotic quantal structures observed far from stability. Because of their short lifetime, they are mostly studied through reactions. The ratio method offers a new observable: the ratio of angular differential cross sections for breakup and scattering. It is predicted to be much more sensitive to the projectile structure than individual cross sections thanks to its independence of the reaction process. We test this new observable experimentally for the first time considering the collision of 11Be on C at 22.8 MeV/nucleon. We extend this analysis to similar data recently measured on Pb at 19.1 MeV/nucleon. Both analyses confirm the theoretical predictions, which opens the door to a new era in the study of nuclear structure near the neutron dripline. This should prove invaluable in conjunction with the start of FRIB. The ratio method could also be extended to other fields of quantum physics beyond nuclear reactions.

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arXiv2024

Study of the Coulomb and nuclear breakup of $^{11}$Be using a Halo-EFT description at N$^2$LO

Background: The halo effective field theory (Halo-EFT) provides a very efficient description of loosely-bound nuclei in models of reaction. It offers a very systematical ranking of the significance of nuclear-structure observables in reaction calculations. This greatly helps to infer reliable structure information from reaction cross sections. However, for a meaningful analysis, the Halo-EFT scheme needs to have converged. Purpose: In a previous study [P. Capel, D. R. Phillips, and H.-W. Hammer, Phys. Rev. C 98, 034610 (2018)], NLO descriptions of 11Be have been developed and lead to excellent agreement with existing breakup data. However, the convergence of the scheme at NLO was not fully demonstrated. Moreover, a significant dependence on the regulator of the effective 10Be-n interaction has been observed. Method: We develop Halo-EFT descriptions of 11Be at N2LO and use them in an accurate breakup-reaction code. We compare our theoretical cross sections with experiment on Pb and C targets at about 70 MeV/nucleon. Results: On Pb, the N2LO descriptions of 11Be lead to little change to the NLO results of the previous study, confirming the convergence of that scheme. On C, the reaction is significantly affected by the presence of d resonances in the low-energy spectrum of 11Be. In the Halo-EFT power counting these resonances appear only at N2LO; our new descriptions include them naturally. Going to N2LO removes also the cutoff dependence observed in the previous study. Conclusions: We demonstrate the convergence of the Halo-EFT description of 11Be at NLO for Coulomb breakup and at N2LO for nuclear-dominated dissociation. The reliability of the nuclear-structure information inferred in the previous study is thus confirmed.

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arXiv2022

$^{10}$Be-nucleus optical potentials developed from chiral effective field theory $NN$ interactions

We present a determination of optical potentials for $^{10}$Be-nucleus collisions using the double-folding method to compute the real part and Kramers-Kronig dispersion relations to derive the imaginary part. As microscopic inputs we use chiral effective field theory nucleon-nucleon interactions at next-to-next-to-leading order combined with state-of-the-art nucleonic densities. With these potentials, we compute elastic scattering cross sections for the exotic nucleus 10 Be off various targets, and compare them to experiment. Without any fitting parameter, we obtain good agreement with data. For collisions on light targets, we observe significant uncertainty related to the short-range physics, whereas for heavy targets that uncertainty remains small.

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arXiv2022

Theoretical analysis of the extraction of neutron skin thickness from coherent {\pi}0 photoproduction off nuclei

Background: Coherent {\pi}0 photoproduction on heavy nuclei has been suggested as a reliable tool to infer neutron skin thicknesses. To this aim, various experiments have been performed, especially on 208Pb. Purpose: We analyze the sensitivity of that reaction process to the nucleonic density, and especially to the neutron skin thickness, for 12C, 40Ca and 208Pb, for which reliable data exist, and on 116,124Sn, for which measurements have been performed in Mainz. We study also the role played by the {\pi}0-nucleus final-state interaction. Method: A model of the reaction is developed at the impulse approximation considering either plane waves or distorted waves to describe the {\pi}0-nucleus scattering in the outgoing channel. Results: Our calculations are in good agreement with existing data, especially for 208Pb. The sensitivity of the theoretical cross sections to the choice of the nucleonic density is small, and below the experimental resolution. Conclusions: Coherent {\pi}0 photoproduction is mostly an isoscalar observable that bares no practical sensitivity to the neutron skin thickness. To infer that structure observable it should be coupled to other reaction measurements, such as electron scattering, or by comparing experiments performed on isotopes of the same chemical element.

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arXiv2020

$\alpha$-nucleus optical potentials from chiral effective field theory $NN$ interactions

We present a determination of optical potentials for $^4$He-target collisions using the double-folding method. We use chiral effective field theory nucleon-nucleon interactions at next-to-next-to-leading order combined with state-of-the-art nucleonic densities. The imaginary part of the optical potential is obtained from the real double-folding interaction either through a proportionality constant or applying Kramers-Kronig dispersion relations. With these potentials, we compute the elastic scattering of $^4$He off various targets, from $^4$He to $^{120}$Sn. We study the sensitivity of our predicted cross sections to the choice of nucleon-nucleon interactions and nuclear densities. Very good agreement is obtained with existing elastic-scattering data for $^4$He energies between 100 and 400 MeV.

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arXiv2020

Simulating core excitation in breakup reactions of halo nuclei using an effective three-body force

We extend our previous calculation of the breakup of 11Be using Halo Effective Field Theory and the Dynamical Eikonal Approximation to include an effective 10Be-n-target force. The force is constructed to account for the virtual excitation of 10Be to its low-lying 2+ excited state. In the case of breakup on a 12C target this improves the description of the neutron-energy and angular spectra, especially in the vicinity of the 11Be 5/2+ state. By fine-tuning the range parameters of the three-body force, a reasonable description of data in the region of the 3/2+ 11Be state can also be obtained. This sensitivity to the three-body force's range results from the structure of the overlap integral that governs the 11Be s-to-d-state transitions induced by the three-body force.

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arXiv2018

Dissecting reaction calculations using Halo EFT and ab initio input

We present a description of the break-up of halo nuclei in peripheral nuclear reactions by coupling a model of the projectile motivated by Halo Effective Field Theory with a fully dynamical treatment of the reaction using the Dynamical Eikonal Approximation. Our description of the halo system reproduces its long-range properties, i.e., binding energy and asymptotic normalization coefficients of bound states and phase shifts of continuum states. As an application we consider the break-up of 11Be in collisions on Pb and C targets. Taking the input for our Halo-EFT-inspired description of 11Be from a recent ab initio calculation of that system yields a good description of the Coulomb-dominated breakup on Pb at energies up to about 2 MeV, with the result essentially independent of the short-distance part of the halo wave function. However, the nuclear dominated break-up on C is more sensitive to short-range physics. The role of spectroscopic factors and possible extensions of our approach to include additional short-range mechanisms are also discussed.

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arXiv2018

Systematic analysis of the peripherality of the $^{10}$Be$(d,p)$$^{11}$Be transfer reaction and extraction of the asymptotic normalization coefficient of $^{11}$Be bound states

We reanalyze the experiment of Schmitt $\textit{et al.}$ on the $^{10}$Be$(d,p)^{11}$Be transfer reaction [Phys. Rev. Lett. $\textbf{108}$, 192701 (2012)] by exploring the beam-energy and angular ranges at which the reaction is strictly peripheral. We consider the adiabatic distorted wave approximation (ADWA) to model the reaction and use a Halo-EFT description of $^{11}$Be to systematically explore the sensitivity of our calculations to the short-range physics of the $^{10}$Be-$n$ wave function. We find that by selecting the data at low beam energy and forward scattering angle the calculated cross sections scale nearly perfectly with the asymptotic normalization coefficient (ANC) of the $^{11}$Be bound states. Following these results, a comparison of our calculations with the experimental data gives a value of $C_{1s1/2}=0.785\pm0.03$ fm$^{-1/2}$ for the $\frac{1}{2}^+$ ground-state ANC and $C_{0p1/2}=0.135\pm0.005$ fm$^{-1/2}$ for the $\frac{1}{2}^-$ excited-state, which are in perfect agreement with the $\textit{ab initio}$ calculations of Calci $\textit{et al.}$, who obtain $C^{\textit{ab initio}}_{1/2^+}=0.786$ fm$^{-1/2}$ and $C^{\textit{ab initio}}_{1/2^-}=0.129$ fm$^{-1/2}$ [Phys. Rev. Lett. $\textbf{117}$, 242501 (2016)].

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arXiv2018

Extension of the ratio method to proton-rich nuclei

The ratio method has been developed to improve the study of one-neutron halo nuclei through reactions. By taking the ratio of angular distributions for two processes, viz. breakup and elastic scattering, this new observable is nearly independent of the reaction mechanism and hence much more sensitive to the projectile structure than the cross sections for each single process. We study the extension of the ratio method to proton-rich nuclei and also explore the optimum experimental conditions for measuring this new observable. We compare accurate dynamical calculations of reactions for proton-rich projectiles to the prediction of the ratio method. We use the dynamical eikonal approximation that provides good results for this kind of reactions at intermediate energy. Our tests for 8B, an archteypical one-proton halo nucleus, on Pb, Ni, and C targets at 44 MeV/nucleon show that, the ratio works less well than for neutron halos due to the non-negligible Coulomb interaction between the valence proton and the target. Nevertheless, the ratio method still provides pertinent information about nuclear structure on the proton-rich side of the valley of stability. Interestingly the method is not affected if energy ranges-or bins-are considered in the projectile continuum. This makes the ratio easier to measure experimentally by increasing the breakup cross section. We also extend our analysis to 17F, 25Al, and 27P, whose study is of interest to both nuclear astrophysics and nuclear structure. We show that, albeit less precise than for one-neutron halo nuclei, nuclear-structure information can be inferred from the ratio method applied to exotic proton-rich nuclei. In particular, when the valence proton is loosely bound in an $s$ or $p$ orbital, viz. for proton halo nuclei, detailed structure information can be obtained through this new reaction observable.

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arXiv2017

Energy dependence of non-local potentials

Recently a variety of studies have shown the importance of including non-locality in the description of reactions. The goal of this work is to revisit the phenomenological approach to determining non-local optical potentials from elastic scattering. We perform a $\chi^2$ analysis of neutron elastic scattering data off $^{40}$Ca, $^{90}$Zr and $^{208}$Pb at energies $E \approx 5-40$ MeV, assuming a Perey and Buck or Tian, Pang, and Ma non-local form for the optical potential. We introduce energy and asymmetry dependencies in the imaginary part of the potential and refit the data to obtain a global parameterization. Independently of the starting point in the minimization procedure, an energy dependence in the imaginary depth is required for a good description of the data across the included energy range. We present two parameterizations, both of which represent an improvement over the original potentials for the fitted nuclei as well as for other nuclei not included in our fit. Our results show that, even when including the standard Gaussian non-locality in optical potentials, a significant energy dependence is required to describe elastic-scattering data.

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arXiv2017

Double-folding potentials from chiral effective field theory

The determination of nucleus-nucleus potentials is important not only to describe the properties of the colliding system, but also to extract nuclear-structure information and for modelling nuclear reactions for astrophysics. We present the first determination of double-folding potentials based on chiral effective field theory at leading, next-to-leading, and next-to-next-to-leading order. To this end, we construct new soft local chiral effective field theory interactions. We benchmark this approach in the $^{16}$O-$^{16}$O system, and present results for cross sections computed for elastic scattering up to 700 MeV in energy, as well as for the astrophysical $S$-factor of the fusion reaction.

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arXiv2017

Toward a complete theory for predicting inclusive deuteron breakup away from stability

We present an account of the current status of the theoretical treatment of inclusive $(d,p)$ reactions in the breakup-fusion formalism, pointing to some applications and making the connection with current experimental capabilities. Three independent implementations of the reaction formalism have been recently developed, making use of different numerical strategies. The codes also originally relied on two different but equivalent representations, namely the prior (Udagawa-Tamura, UT) and the post (Ichimura-Austern-Vincent, IAV) representations. The different implementations have been benchmarked, and then applied to the Ca isotopic chain. The neutron-Ca propagator is described in the Dispersive Optical Model (DOM) framework, and the interplay between elastic breakup (EB) and non-elastic breakup (NEB) is studied for three Ca isotopes at two different bombarding energies. The accuracy of the description of different reaction observables is assessed by comparing with experimental data of $(d,p)$ on $^{40,48}$Ca. We discuss the predictions of the model for the extreme case of an isotope ($^{60}$Ca) currently unavailable experimentally, though possibly available in future facilities (nominally within production reach at FRIB). We explore the use of $(d,p)$ reactions as surrogates for $(n,\gamma)$ processes, by using the formalism to describe the compound nucleus formation in a $(d,p\gamma)$ reaction as a function of excitation energy, spin, and parity. The subsequent decay is then computed within a Hauser-Feshbach formalism. Comparisons between the $(d,p\gamma)$ and $(n,\gamma)$ induced gamma decay spectra are discussed to inform efforts to infer neutron captures from $(d,p\gamma)$ reactions. Finally, we identify areas of opportunity for future developments, and discuss a possible path toward a predictive reaction theory.

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arXiv2016

Extension of the ratio method to low energy

Background: The ratio method has been proposed as a means to remove the reaction model dependence in the study of halo nuclei. Purpose: Originally, it was developed for higher energies but given the potential interest in applying the method at lower energy, in this work we explore its validity at 20 MeV/nucleon. Method: The ratio method takes the ratio of the breakup angular distribution and the summed angular distribution (which includes elastic, inelastic and breakup) and uses this observable to constrain the features of the original halo wave function. In this work we use the Continuum Discretized Coupled Channel method and the Coulomb-corrected Dynamical Eikonal Approximation for the study. Results: We study the reactions of 11Be on 12C, 40Ca and 208Pb at 20 MeV/nucleon. We compare the various theoretical descriptions and explore the dependence of our result on the core-target interaction. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that the ratio method is valid at these lower beam energies.

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arXiv2015

Recent developments in the eikonal description of the breakup of exotic nuclei

The study of exotic nuclear structures, such as halo nuclei, is usually performed through nuclear reactions. An accurate reaction model coupled to a realistic description of the projectile is needed to correctly interpret experimental data. In this contribution, we briefly summarise the assumptions made within the modelling of reactions involving halo nuclei. We describe briefly the Continuum-Discretised Coupled Channel method (CDCC) and the Dynamical Eikonal Approximation (DEA) in particular and present a comparison between them for the breakup of 15C on Pb at 68AMeV. We show the problem faced by the models based on the eikonal approximation at low energy and detail a correction that enables their extension down to lower beam energies. A new reaction observable is also presented. It consists of the ratio between angular distributions for two different processes, such as elastic scattering and breakup. This ratio is completely independent of the reaction mechanism and hence is more sensitive to the projectile structure than usual reaction observables, which makes it a very powerful tool to study exotic structures far from stability.

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arXiv2013

The ratio method: a new tool to study one-neutron halo nuclei

Recently a new observable to study halo nuclei was introduced, based on the ratio between breakup and elastic angular cross sections. This new observable is shown by the analysis of specific reactions to be independent of the reaction mechanism and to provide nuclear-structure information of the projectile. Here we explore the details of this ratio method, including the sensitivity to binding energy and angular momentum of the projectile. We also study the reliability of the method with breakup energy. Finally, we provide guidelines and specific examples for experimentalists who wish to apply this method.

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arXiv2012

Mechanisms of direct reactions with halo nuclei

Halo nuclei are exotic nuclei which exhibit a strongly clusterised structure: they can be seen as one or two valence nucleons loosely bound to a core. Being observed at the ridge of the valley of stability, halo nuclei are studied mostly through reactions. In this contribution the reaction models most commonly used to analyse experimental data are reviewed and compared to one another. A reaction observable built on the ratio of two angular distributions is then presented. This ratio enables removing most of the sensitivity to the reaction mechanism, which emphasises the effects of nuclear structure on the reaction.

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arXiv2012

Near-Far Description of Elastic and Breakup Reactions of Halo Nuclei

The angular distributions for elastic scattering and breakup of halo nuclei are analysed using a near-side/far-side decomposition within the framework of the dynamical eikonal approximation. This analysis is performed for 11Be impinging on Pb at 69AMeV. These distributions exhibit very similar features. In particular they are both near-side dominated, as expected from Coulomb-dominated reactions. The general shape of these distributions is sensitive mostly to the projectile-target interactions, but is also affected by the extension of the halo. This suggests that the link between elastic scattering and a possible loss of flux towards the breakup channel is not obvious.

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