Double Charge Exchange Research Articles

Two-nucleon transfer and Double Charge Exchange reactions

In this contribution we present a study of a direct and sequential two-nucleon transfer within the microscopic Interacting Boson Model (IBM-2) and Interacting Boson- Fermion Model (IBFM), respectively. We present our preliminary results for heavy-ion double-charge-exchange40Ca(18O,18Ne)40ArG.S. differential cross section too.

Double charge-exchange reactions and the effect of transfer

There is a recently renewed interest on the study of single and double charge exchange reactions with heavy ions. We report here a preliminary theoretical study of double charge exchange reactions in terms of two successive charge exchanges in 2nd order Distorted Wave Born approximation. This allows us to include the effect of the different transfer channels in an approximate way. Evidences show that the charge exchange process is dominant. The following one in importance is the combination of one single charge exchange, one neutron pick-up and one proton stripping. This particular process calls for further investigation.

Silicon Carbide detectors for nuclear physics experiments at high beam luminosity

Silicon carbide is a very promising material for next generation nuclear physics experiments at high beam luminosity. Such activities require devices able to sustain high fluxes of particles (up to 1014 ions/cm2) in order to determine the cross sections of very rare nuclear phenomena. One of these activities is the NUMEN project, which aims, through the double charge exchange reactions, to impact in the determination of nuclear matrix elements entering in the expression of half-life of the neutrino-less double beta decay. Due to the very low cross sections, these features can just be explored at fluences which exceed by far those tolerated in state of the art solid state detectors, typically used in this kind of experiments. The SiC technology offers today an ideal response to such challenges, giving the opportunity to cope the excellent properties of silicon detectors with the radiation hardness, thermal stability and visible blindness of SiC material.

The NUMEN project: NUclear Matrix Elements for Neutrinoless double beta decay

The article describes the main achievements of the NUMEN project together with an updated and detailed overview of the related R&D activities and theoretical developments. NUMEN proposes an innovative technique to access the nuclear matrix elements entering the expression of the lifetime of the double beta decay by cross section measurements of heavy-ion induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. Despite the two processes, namely neutrinoless double beta decay and DCE reactions, are triggered by the weak and strong interaction respectively, important analogies are suggested. The basic point is the coincidence of the initial and final state many-body wave-functions in the two types of processes and the formal similarity of the transition operators. First experimental results obtained at the INFN-LNS laboratory for the 40Ca(18O,18Ne)40Ar reaction at 270 MeV, give encouraging indication on the capability of the proposed technique to access relevant quantitative information. The two major aspects for this project are the K800 Superconducting Cyclotron and MAGNEX spectrometer. The former is used for the acceleration of the required high resolution and low emittance heavy ion beams and the latter is the large acceptance magnetic spectrometer for the detection of the ejectiles. The use of the high-order trajectory reconstruction technique, implemented in MAGNEX, allows to reach the experimental resolution and sensitivity required for the accurate measurement of the DCE cross sections at forward angles. However, the tiny values of such cross sections and the resolution requirements demand beam intensities much larger than manageable with the present facility. The on-going upgrade of the INFN-LNS facilities in this perspective is part of the NUMEN project and will be discussed in the article.

Double Charge Exchange Reactions and Double Beta Decay

The subject of this presentation is at the forefront of nuclear physics, namely double beta decay. In particular one is most interested in the neutrinoless process of double beta decay, when the decay proceeds without the emission of two neutrinos. The observation of such decay would mean that the lepton conservation symmetry is violated and that the neutrinos are of Majorana type, meaning that they are their own anti-particles. The life time of this process has two unknowns, the mass of the neutrino and the nuclear matrix element. Determining the nuclear matrix element and knowing the cross-section well will set limits on the neutrino mass. There is a concentrated effort among the nuclear physics community to calculate this matrix element. Usually these matrix elements are a very small part of the total strength of the transition operators involved in the process. There is no simple way to “calibrate” the nuclear double beta decay matrix element. The double beta decay is a double charge exchange process, therefore it is proposed that double charge exchange reactions using ion projectiles on nuclei that are candidates for double beta decay, will provide additional necessary information about the nuclear matrix elements.

Experimental challenges for the measurement of the 116Cd(20Ne,20O)116Sn double charge exchange reaction at 15 AMeV

The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements (NME) entering in the expression of the half-life of the neutrinoless double beta decay is fundamental for neutrino physics. Information on the nuclear matrix elements can be obtained by measuring the absolute cross section of double charge exchange nuclear reactions. The two processes present some similarities, the initial and final-state wave functions are the same and the transition operators are similar. The experimental measurements of double charge exchange reactions induced by heavy ions present a number of challenging aspects, since such reactions are characterized by very low cross sections. Such difficulties are discussed for the measurement of the 116Cd(20Ne,20O)116Sn reaction at 15 AMeV.

Measuring nuclear reaction cross sections to extract information on neutrinoless double beta decay

Neutrinoless double beta decay (0vββ) is considered the best potential resource to access the absolute neutrino mass scale. Moreover, if observed, it will signal that neutrinos are their own anti-particles (Majorana particles). Presently, this physics case is one of the most important research “beyond Standard Model” and might guide the way towards a Grand Unified Theory of fundamental interactions.Since the 0vββ decay process involves nuclei, its analysis necessarily implies nuclear structure issues. In the NURE project, supported by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC), nuclear reactions of double charge-exchange (DCE) are used as a tool to extract information on the 0vββ Nuclear Matrix Elements. In DCE reactions and ββ decay indeed the initial and final nuclear states are the same and the transition operators have similar structure. Thus the measurement of the DCE absolute cross-sections can give crucial information on ββ matrix elements. In a wider view, the NUMEN international collaboration plans a major upgrade of the INFN-LNS facilities in the next years in order to increase the experimental production of nuclei of at least two orders of magnitude, thus making feasible a systematic study of all the cases of interest as candidates for 0vββ.

The nuclear matrix elements of 0νββ decay and the NUMEN project at INFN-LNS

The goal of NUMEN project is to access experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by high-accuracy measurements of the cross sections of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 00νββ decay and to compare experiments on different isotopes. In particular, the (18O, 18Ne) and (20Ne, 20O) reactions are performed as tools for β+β+ and β-β- decays, respectively. The experiments are performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania using the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) to accelerate the beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer to detect the reaction products. The measured cross sections are very low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. In order to make feasible a systematic study of all the candidate nuclei, a major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen to increase the experimental yield of about two orders of magnitude. To this purpose, frontier technologies are going to be developed for both the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models will be developed to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections.

Measurement of Absolute Single and Double Charge Exchange Cross Sections for Si(7–10)+ at 0.88–2.50 KeV/u Impacting He and H2

Abstract First measurements are reported for total, absolute, single, and double charge-exchange (CE) cross sections for Si(7–10)+ ions in the solar wind (SW), colliding with the prevalent astrophysical species H2 and He found in comets, the interplanetary medium, and planetary atmospheres. Measurements are in the energy range 0.88–2.50 keV/u, corresponding to the energies of the “fast” and “slow” ion components of the SW. Limited agreement is found with single-exchange results calculated in the classical over-the-barrier model. These CE data are useful for understanding, in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, photon emissions in the X-ray to visible energy range arising from resulting ion-stabilization steps.

Continuum distorted-wave method in the two-electron charge exchange theory

Introduction. In the case of collisions with multi-charged ions of atoms, more complex than the hydrogen atom, other than single-electron charge exchange and ionization, other processes may occur. These are, first of all, the processes of two-electron capture, capture with simultaneous ionization or ion excitation and others. We shall stop on the problems of the theoretical description of the processes of two-electron capture in the region of intermediate and high collision velocities of ions with atoms. Purpose . Research the interactions of multi-charged ions with atoms in the region of intermediate and high collision velocities using theoretical methods. Methods. To describe the double charge exchange processes in high-energy ion-atom collisions a four-part formalism of continuum distorted-wave method (CDW-method), based on the integral Dodd-Graider's equations, were developed. Results. We obtained a matrix element that describes the two-step (Thomas) mechanism of electron capture through a continuous spectrum from a target atom into bound states relative to the fast -particle. For the reaction amplitude, in the approximation of the mechanism of simultaneous capture of two electrons, a general expression that takes into account Coulomb effects in the initial and final states is found. Conclusion. The application of the general theory is illustrated by the example of a two-electron charge exchange reaction in collisions of helium atoms with -particles. The results of calculations of the cross sections are in good agreement with the experimental and theoretical data. An attractive side of the proposed formalism is the consistent consideration of the asymptotics of wave functions in both channels of the reaction, which takes into account the long-range nature of the Coulomb interactions.

Mini-phoswich and SiPM for heavy ion detection

The possibility to use a mini-phoswich detector to identify ions in the region of Z ∼ 10 is explored in the framework of the NUMEN project. The NUMEN program, aimed at the investigation of the nuclear matrix elements connected to the neutrinoless double beta decay by means of double charge exchange nuclear reactions, foresees very high fluencies, which prevent the use of standard silicon as stop detectors. The need of reasonable radiation hardness, together with a total energy resolution around 2% and a high granularity, makes scintillators possible candidates. Promising results are obtained using an array of plastic + inorganic phoswich scintillators readout by means of Silicon Photo Multipliers.

Missing-mass spectroscopy with the Li6(π−,K+)X reaction to search for HΛ6

We searched for the bound state of the neutron-rich $\Lambda$-hypernucleus ${}^{6}_{\Lambda}$H, using the ${}^{6}$Li($\pi^{-}, K^{+}$)X double charge-exchange reaction at a $\pi^{-}$ beam momentum of 1.2 GeV/c at J-PARC. A total of $1.4 \times 10^{12}$ $\pi^{-}$ was driven onto a ${}^{6}$Li target of 3.5-g/$\rm cm^2$ thickness. No event was observed below the bound threshold, i.e., the mass of ${}^{4}_{\Lambda}$H + 2n, in the missing-mass spectrum of the ${}^{6}$Li($\pi^{-}, K^{+}$)X reaction in the $2^{\circ}$ < $\theta_{\pi K}$ < $20^{\circ}$ angular range. Furthermore, no event was found up to 2.8 MeV/$c^2$ above the bound threshold. We obtained the the double-differential cross section spectra of the ${}^{6}$Li($\pi^{-}, K^{+}$)X reaction in the angular range of $2^{\circ}$ < $\theta_{\pi K}$ < $14^{\circ}$. An upper limit of 0.56 nb/sr (90% C.L.) was obtained for the production cross section of the ${}^{6}_{\Lambda}$H hypernucleus bound state. In addition, not only the bound state region, but also the $\Lambda$ continuum region and part of the $\Sigma^{-}$ quasi-free production region of the ${}^{6}$Li($\pi^{-}, K^{+}$)X reaction, were obtained with high statistics. The present missing-mass spectrum will facilitate the investigation of the $\Sigma^{-}$-nucleus optical potential for $\Sigma^{-}$-${}^{5}$He through spectrum shape analysis.

Modeling the double charge exchange response function for a tetraneutron system

This work is an attempt to model the $4n$ response function of a recent RIKEN experimental study of the double charge exchange $^4$He($^8$He,$^8$Be)$^4$n reaction in order to put in evidence an eventual enhancement mechanism of the zero energy cross section, including a near-threshold resonance. This resonance can indeed be reproduced only by adding to the standard nuclear Hamiltonian an unphysically large T=3/2 attractive 3n-force which destroys the neighboring nuclear chart. No other mechanisms like cusps or related structures were found.

Nuclear fragmentation and charge-exchange reactions induced by pions in the Δ-resonance region

Dynamics of the nuclear fragmentations and the charge exchange reactions in pion-nucleus collisions near the $\Delta$(1232) resonance energies has been investigated within the Lanzhou quantum molecular dynamics (LQMD) transport model. An isospin, momentum and density-dependent pion-nucleon potential is implemented in the model, which influences the pion dynamics, in particular the kinetic energy spectra, but weakly impacts the fragmentation mechanism. The absorption process in pion-nucleon collisions to form the $\Delta$(1232) resonance dominates the heating mechanism of target nucleus. The excitation energy transferred to the target nucleus increases with the pion kinetic energy and is similar for both $\pi^{-}$ and $\pi^{+}$ induced reactions. The magnitude of fragmentation of target nucleus weakly depends on the pion energy. The isospin ratio in the pion double charge exchange is influenced by the isospin ingredient of target nucleus.

The nuclear matrix elements of 0vββ decay and the NUMEN project at INFN-LNS

An innovative technique to access the nuclear matrix elements entering the expression of the life time of the double beta decay by relevant cross section measurements of double charge exchange reactions is proposed. A key aspect of the project is the use of the MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer, for the detection of the ejectiles, and of the LNS K800 Superconducting Cyclotron (CS), for the acceleration of the required high resolution and low emittance heavy-ion beams, already in operation at INFN Laboratory Nazionali del Sud in Catania (Italy). However, a major upgrade is foreseen for the INFN-LNS research infrastructure to cope with beam currents as high as several ppA required by the project.

NUMEN Project @ LNS : Heavy Ions Double Charge Exchange as a tool towards the 0νββ Nuclear Matrix Element

The NUMEN Project, proposed at INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania, has the aim to access the nuclear matrix elements, entering the expression of the life time of double beta decay, by relevant cross sections of double charge exchange reactions. The basic point, on which it is based this innovative technique, is the coincidence of the initial and final state wave-functions in the two classes of processes and the similarity of the transition operators. A key aspect of the Project is the use of MAGNEX large acceptance magnetic spectrometer, for the detection of the ejectiles, and of the INFN LNS K800 Superconducting Cyclotron (CS), for the acceleration of the required high resolution and low emittance heavy-ion beams.

The MAGNEX spectrometer: Results and perspectives

This article discusses the main achievements and future perspectives of the MAGNEX spectrometer at the INFN-LNS laboratory in Catania (Italy). MAGNEX is a large acceptance magnetic spectrometer for the detection of the ions emitted in nuclear collisions below Fermi energy. In the first part of the paper an overview of the MAGNEX features is presented. The successful application to the precise reconstruction of the momentum vector, to the identification of the ion masses and to the determination of the transport efficiency is demonstrated by in-beam tests. In the second part, an overview of the most relevant scientific achievements is given. Results from nuclear elastic and inelastic scattering as well as from transfer and charge exchange reactions in a wide range of masses of the colliding systems and incident energies are shown. The role of MAGNEX in solving old and new puzzles in nuclear structure and direct reaction mechanisms is emphasized. One example is the recently observed signature of the long searched Giant Pairing Vibration. Finally, the new challenging opportunities to use MAGNEX for future experiments are briefly reported. In particular, the use of double charge exchange reactions toward the determination of the nuclear matrix elements entering in the expression of the half-life of neutrinoless double beta decay is discussed. The new NUMEN project of INFN, aiming at these investigations, is introduced. The challenges connected to the major technical upgrade required by the project in order to investigate rare processes under high fluxes of detected heavy ions are outlined.

Challenges in the description of the atomic nucleus: Unification and interdisciplinarity

Nuclear physics, in general, and theoretical nuclear physics, in particular, have provided the physics community at large, among other things, with the paradigm of spontaneous symmetry breaking phenomena in finite many-body systems. The study of the associated mechanisms of symmetry restoration has shed light on the microscopic structure of the corresponding condensates, in particular on the superfluid phase, allowing to study Cooper pair tunnelling into superfluid nuclei (related to the Josephson effect), in terms of individual quantum states and reaching, in doing so, a new milestone: that of unifying structure and reactions, these last processes being found at the basis of the formulation of quantum mechanics (probability interpretation, Born). In the process, nuclear physicists have extended the validity of BCS theory of superconductivity to the single Cooper pair situation, let alone discovering unexpected mechanism to break gauge invariance. The insight obtained from pair transfer research is likely to have important consequences in the study of double charge exchange processes, and thus in the determination of the nuclear matrix element associated with neutrinoless double beta decay, eventually providing an important test of the Standard Model. Time, thus, seems ripe for nuclear theorists to take centre stage, backed by a wealth of experimental information and by their interdisciplinary capacity to connect basic physical concepts across the borders. With the help of these elements they can aim at fully revealing the many facets of their femtometer many-body system, from vacuum zero point fluctuations to new exotic modes of nuclear excitations and of their interweaving, resulting in powerful effective field theories. Unless. Unless they are not able to free themselves from words like ab initio or fundamental, and to adapt a relax attitude concerning Skyrme, tensor, etc., forces, as well as regarding the quest for “the” Hamiltonian.

Effect of final state interaction in 3He (π−, π+) 3n reaction

The calculation of the doubly differential cross section was performed using sequential single charge exchange mechanism for the double charge exchange reaction 3He (π−, π+) 3n. The effect of the final state interaction between two active neutrons was investigated using Malfliet Tjon potential. Our results were compared with experimental results at intermediate energy range for the values 120, 180, 210 and 240 MeV. In this study, pion production was used to interpret the low energy peak that was observed on the forward angles at the incident energies of 210 and 240 MeV.

The nuclear matrix elements of 0νββdecay and the NUMEN project at INFN-LNS

The goal of NUMEN project is to access experimentally driven information on Nuclear Matrix Elements (NME) involved in the neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), by high-accuracy measurements of the cross sections of Heavy Ion (HI) induced Double Charge Exchange (DCE) reactions. The knowledge of the nuclear matrix elements is crucial to infer the neutrino average masses from the possible measurement of the half-life of 00νββ decay and to compare experiments on different isotopes. In particular, the (18 O, 18 Ne) and (20 Ne, 20 O) reactions are performed as tools for β+ β+ and β- β- decays, respectively. The experiments are performed at INFN - Laboratory Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania using the Superconducting Cyclotron (CS) to accelerate the beams and the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer to detect the reaction products. The measured cross sections are very low, limiting the present exploration to few selected isotopes of interest in the context of typically low-yield experimental runs. In order to make feasible a systematic study of all the candidate nuclei, a major upgrade of the LNS facility is foreseen to increase the experimental yield of about two orders of magnitude. To this purpose, frontier technologies are going to be developed for both the accelerator and the detection systems. In parallel, advanced theoretical models will be developed to extract the nuclear structure information from the measured cross sections.