Microscopic calculations of transport properties of neutron matter

TL;DR

This paper presents microscopic calculations of neutron matter's shear viscosity and thermal conductivity, revealing significant medium effects on nucleon interactions and consistent results across different theoretical approaches.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of correlated basis function and G-matrix methods for calculating neutron-neutron collision probabilities in neutron matter.

Findings

Medium modifications greatly enhance transport coefficients.

Results from both theoretical schemes are in good agreement.

Calculations are based on realistic nuclear potentials.

Abstract

We discuss the results of calculations of the shear viscosity and thermal conductivity of pure neutron matter, carried out within the Landau-Abrikosov-Khalatnikov formalism. The probability of neutron-neutron collisions in the nuclear medium has been obtained from a realistic potential, using both the correlated basis function and the $G$-matrix approach. The results of our work indicate that medium modifications of nucleon-nucleon scattering are large, their inclusion leading to a dramatic enhancement of the transport coefficients. On the other hand, the results obtained from the two theoretical schemes appear to be in fairly good agreement.