Nuclear Radii Calculations in Various Theoretical Approaches for Nucleus-Nucleus Interactions

TL;DR

This paper compares different theoretical models for calculating nuclear radii in nucleus-nucleus collisions, highlighting how results vary with the approach and comparing them to electron scattering data.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes how nuclear radius calculations depend on theoretical assumptions and provides comparative data across multiple models.

Findings

R_{rms} values vary by about 0.1 fm across models

Different approaches yield consistent results within this variation

Comparison with electron scattering data validates some models

Abstract

The information about sizes and nuclear density distributions in unstable (radioactive) nuclei is usually extracted from the data on interaction of radioactive nuclear beams with a nuclear target. We show that in the case of nucleus-nucleus collisions the values of the parameters depend rather strongly on the considered theoretical approach and on the assumption about the parametrization of the nuclear density distribution. The obtained values of root-mean-square radii (R_{rms}) for stable nuclei with atomic weights A = 12-40 vary by approximately 0.1 fm when calculated in the optical approximation, in the rigid target approximation, and using the exact expression of Glauber Theory. We present several examples of R_{rms} radii calculations using these three theoretical approaches and compare these results with the data obtained from electron-nucleus scattering.