Physics of Electroweak Interactions with Nuclei

TL;DR

This paper reviews how electroweak probes can be used to study nuclear strong dynamics, focusing on deriving cross sections, response functions, and comparing theoretical predictions with experimental data, especially for few-nucleon systems.

Contribution

It introduces the Lorentz integral transform method for ab initio calculation of response functions and emphasizes the role of three-body forces in nuclear interactions.

Findings

Response functions depend strongly on nuclear interactions.

The Lorentz integral transform method effectively computes response functions.

Theoretical results show good agreement with experimental data.

Abstract

In this series of lectures it is illustrated how one can study the strong dynamics of nuclei by means of the electroweak probe. In particular, the most important steps to derive the cross sections in first order perturbation theory are reviewed. In the derivation the focus is put on the main ingredients entering the hadronic part (response functions), i.e. the initial and final states of the system and the operators relevant for the reaction. Emphasis is put on the electromagnetic interaction with few-nucleon systems. The Lorentz integral transform method to calculate the response functions ab initio is described. A few examples of the comparison between theoretical and experimental results are shown. The dependence of the response functions on the nuclear interaction and in particular on three-body forces is emphasized.