Abstract
We discuss the importance of the root mean square matter radius as a key observable for testing the validity of the nuclear forces employed in nuclear structure calculations. The link between proton-nucleus scattering and radii is underlined, with the test case carried out for ^8He. When a systematic study of both nuclear radii and binding energies is feasible, as done in (even) oxygen isotopes from the valley of stability to the neutron drip line, we show that the combined comparison of measured radii and binding energies with ab initio calculations offers unique insight on input nuclear forces. The need to use newly developed interactions to improve the description of the radii is discussed.
Highlights
We discuss the importance of the root mean square matter radius as a key observable for testing the validity of the nuclear forces employed in nuclear structure calculations
One of the fundamental objectives of nuclear physics is to obtain a description of the properties of the atomic nucleus based on modelling built on elementary interactions, i.e. interactions between the components of the nucleus, protons and neutrons
With the means of production at our disposal, most of them cannot be reached in the laboratory, even in the distant future. They are involved in nuclear reactions in the heart of stars, and their properties are crucial to understand the nucleosynthesis processes of heavy elements. This indeterminacy on the possible number of exotic nuclei is related to our lack of knowledge of the characteristics of systems weakly linked to large isospin
Summary
Beyond the choice of the nuclear interactions employed for the calculations, the theories need to overcome conceptual problems like the reliable treatment of transfer to the continuum states and coupled reaction channels to achieve the goal of linking static structure properties and dynamical aspects at play in nuclear reactions. The first step is to have an accurate treatment of the ground-state properties and to perform systematic comparison of both the binding energies and nuclear radii of Fig. 1. Elastic proton scattering induced by the extended isotopic chains, from the 8He beam at 15.4 A.MeV measured in two stability valley to the binding boundary experiments (crosses and points) are compared to of the neutron drip line, leading a the microscopic calculations using the JLM complete analysis of all available potential (black curve; see text). We discuss below (2.2) the conditions for extracting accurate radii observables in the case of 8He and the complete study (2.3) led on the even oxygen isotopes [3]
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