Ground-state properties of neutron-rich Mg isotopes

Abstract

We analyze recently measured total reaction cross sections for ${}^{24--38}$Mg isotopes incident on ${}^{12}$C targets at 240 MeV/nucleon by using the folding model and antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD). The folding model well reproduces the measured reaction cross sections, when the projectile densities are evaluated by the deformed Woods-Saxon (def-WS) model with AMD deformation. Matter radii of ${}^{24--38}$Mg are then deduced from the measured reaction cross sections by fine tuning the parameters of the def-WS model. The deduced matter radii are largely enhanced by nuclear deformation. Fully microscopic AMD calculations with no free parameter well reproduce the deduced matter radii for ${}^{24--36}$Mg, but still considerably underestimate them for ${}^{37,38}$Mg. The large matter radii suggest that ${}^{37,38}$Mg are candidates for deformed halo nucleus. AMD also reproduces other existing measured ground-state properties (spin parity, total binding energy, and one-neutron separation energy) of Mg isotopes. Neutron-number ($N$) dependence of deformation parameter is predicted by AMD. Large deformation is seen from ${}^{31}$Mg with $N=19$ to a drip-line nucleus ${}^{40}$Mg with $N=28$, indicating that both the $N=20$ and 28 magicities disappear. $N$ dependence of neutron skin thickness is also predicted by AMD.