Electro-Weak Interactions in Light Nuclei

TL;DR

This thesis investigates low-energy electro-weak reactions in light nuclei, focusing on neutrino interactions and photoabsorption, employing novel computational methods to enhance understanding of nuclear processes relevant to astrophysics and fundamental physics.

Contribution

It introduces the application of the Lorentz Integral Transform and EIHH methods to study neutrino interactions and photoabsorption in light nuclei, advancing computational techniques in nuclear physics.

Findings

Calculated neutrino interactions with A=3 and 4 nuclei at supernova energies.

Analyzed photoabsorption on helium-4 using novel methods.

Provided insights into nuclear reactions relevant to astrophysics.

Abstract

In this thesis, conducted in the field of few--body nuclear physics,I studied low energy inelastic reactions of electro--weak probes on light nuclei. Such interactions hold experimental and theoretical attention in recent years because of the role they play in various fields of physics, stretching from checking the standard model limits; through nuclear structure and dynamics research; up to microscopic interaction in astrophysical phenomena, such as supernova explosion and the nucleosynthesis of the elements. The reactions considered in this work are: (i) Neutrino interaction with A=3 and $^4$He nuclei, in energies typical to core-collapse supernova. For $^4$He both the neutral and charged current reactions were calculated, whereas only neutral current reactions are calculated for A=3 nuclei. (ii) Photoabsorption on $^4$He. This long standing problem has been the attraction of theoretical and experimental efforts in the last three decades. The calculations make use of two novel methods. the Lorentz Integral Transform (LIT) method, which is used to transform the scattering problem to a bound state like problem. The resulting equations are solved using the Effective Interaction in the Hyperspherical Harmonics (EIHH) method.