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Ab initio predictions link the neutron skin of 208Pb to nuclear forces

Hu, Baishan; Jaing, Weiguang; Miyagi, Takayuki; Sun, Zhonghao; Ekström, Andreas; Forssén, Christian; Hagen, Gaute; Holt, Jason D.; Papenbrock, Thomas; Stroberg, S. Ragnar; Vernon, Ian

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Authors

Baishan Hu

Weiguang Jaing

Takayuki Miyagi

Zhonghao Sun

Andreas Ekström

Christian Forssén

Gaute Hagen

Jason D. Holt

Thomas Papenbrock

S. Ragnar Stroberg



Abstract

Heavy atomic nuclei have an excess of neutrons over protons, which leads to the formation of a neutron skin whose thickness is sensitive to details of the nuclear force. This links atomic nuclei to properties of neutron stars, thereby relating objects that differ in size by orders of magnitude. The nucleus 208Pb is of particular interest because it exhibits a simple structure and is experimentally accessible. However, computing such a heavy nucleus has been out of reach for ab initio theory. By combining advances in quantum many-body methods, statistical tools and emulator technology, we make quantitative predictions for the properties of 208Pb starting from nuclear forces that are consistent with symmetries of low-energy quantum chromodynamics. We explore 109 different nuclear force parameterizations via history matching, confront them with data in select light nuclei and arrive at an importance-weighted ensemble of interactions. We accurately reproduce bulk properties of 208Pb and determine the neutron skin thickness, which is smaller and more precise than a recent extraction from parity-violating electron scattering but in agreement with other experimental probes. This work demonstrates how realistic two- and three-nucleon forces act in a heavy nucleus and allows us to make quantitative predictions across the nuclear landscape.

Citation

Hu, B., Jaing, W., Miyagi, T., Sun, Z., Ekström, A., Forssén, C., …Vernon, I. (2022). Ab initio predictions link the neutron skin of 208Pb to nuclear forces. Nature Physics, 18(10), 1196-1200. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01715-8

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 11, 2022
Online Publication Date Aug 22, 2022
Publication Date 2022-10
Deposit Date Jun 6, 2022
Publicly Available Date Feb 1, 2023
Journal Nature Physics
Print ISSN 1745-2473
Electronic ISSN 1745-2481
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 18
Issue 10
Pages 1196-1200
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01715-8

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Copyright Statement
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.




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