Nuclei at the Limits of Particle Stability

Abstract

between the protons in the nucleus. The details of the nuclear landscape are highly influenced by the fact that the n-p interaction is slightly stronger than either the n-n or p-p reaction. Excluding consideration of the Coulomb force, nuclei with equal numbers of neutrons and pro tons are more stable since the numberof n-p interactions is maximized. Furthermore, since the n-n system is slightly unbound, infinite, or even very large: , collections of neutrons and a few protons are not stable (except p(!rhaps in neutron starts, stabilized by gravity).The extent of stable nuclei found in nature illustrates the character istics of the nuclear stability. The stable nuclei (found naturally) are represented by dark squares in Figure I, the chart of nuclides. For nuclei greater than A = 40, the Coulomb force has shifted the line of stability away from N = Z toward neutron-rich nuclei . The Coulomb force also limits the extent of the heaviest elements since the short range of the nuclear force does not provide sufficient binding in large

Relativistic Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory with density dependent meson-nucleon couplings

“…On the other hand, the development of the radioactive ion beam (RIB) facilities [26] has opened a new frontier for nuclear physics, the field of exotic nuclei far from the valley of stability [27,28,29,30,31,32,33] and the upgrades and constructions of the RIB facilities [34,35,36,37] in recent few years will provide us with new possibilities to study exotic modes in nuclear systems. The current application of DDRHF is limited to nuclei in the β-stability valley and pairing effects in open shell nuclei are treated only within the BCS approximation [17,19].…”

Structure of unstable light nuclei

“…In principle the shell model is complete and in practice it can be used phenomenologically to correlate rather precisely the systematics of nuclear properties over considerable ranges of mass number. For some mass numbers, the tabulations are up to 12 years out of date but the general flavour of advances in the field can be obtained from recent major conferences such as ENAM98 [14], recent reviews on specific topics [15][16][17][18], and the most recent references to specific nuclei (given later).…”

Constraining Hadronic Superfluidity with Neutron Star Precession

“…The specific heat of the stellar interior is determined by the state of the matter, while neutrino emission processes which cool a young neutron star are strongly suppressed in the presence of hadronic superfluids (see, e.g., [2]). The properties of condensed hadronic systems are also of interest in studies of heavy nuclei near the neutron drip line [3] and light halo nuclei [4]. The properties of hadronic systems in beta equilibrium is therefore a central problem in both nuclear astrophysics and nuclear physics.…”