Scaling laws and higher-order effects in Coulomb excitation of neutron halo nuclei

TL;DR

This paper derives scaling laws and higher-order effects for Coulomb excitation of neutron halo nuclei, providing analytical tools to interpret experiments and benchmark reaction theories.

Contribution

It introduces systematic expansion methods and scaling laws for excitation amplitudes and cross sections in neutron halo nuclei Coulomb excitation.

Findings

Scaling laws for excitation amplitudes and cross sections

Analytical results for wave functions and transition matrix-elements

Benchmark tests for reaction theories

Abstract

Essential properties of halo nuclei can be described in terms of a few low-energy constants. For neutron halo nuclei, analytical results can be found for wave functions and electromagnetic transition matrix-elements in simple but well-adapted models. These wave functions can be used to study nuclear reactions; an especially simple and instructive example is Coulomb excitation. A systematic expansion in terms of small parameters can be given. We present scaling laws for excitation amplitudes and cross sections. The results can be used to analyze experiments like ${}^{11}$Be Coulomb excitation. They also serve as benchmark tests for more involved reaction theories.