The quest for novel modes of excitation in exotic nuclei

TL;DR

This paper reviews open problems in understanding novel excitation modes in exotic nuclei, emphasizing the need for advanced theoretical models and experimental efforts to explore nuclei with extreme properties relevant to astrophysics.

Contribution

It highlights key unresolved issues in nuclear excitations and discusses the application of modern many-body theories and experimental techniques to address these challenges.

Findings

Identification of open problems in pygmy dipole resonances

Discussion of excitation modes in neutron-rich and proton drip-line nuclei

Analysis of exotic modes at finite temperatures in stellar environments

Abstract

This article provides an insight into several open problems in the quest for novel modes of excitation in nuclei with isospin asymmetry, deformation and finite temperature characteristic in stellar environment. Major unsolved problems include the nature of pygmy dipole resonances, the quest for various multipole and spin-isospin excitations both in neutron-rich and proton drip-line nuclei mainly driven by loosely bound nucleons, excitations in unstable deformed nuclei and evolution of their properties with the shape phase transition. Exotic modes of excitation in nuclei at finite temperatures characteristic for supernova evolution present open problems with possible impact in modeling astrophysically relevant weak interaction rates. All these issues challenge self-consistent many body theory frameworks at the frontiers of on-going research, including nuclear energy density functionals, both phenomenological and constrained by the strong interaction physics of QCD, models based on low-momentum two-nucleon interaction V_{low-k} and correlated realistic nucleon-nucleon interaction V_{UCOM}, supplemented by three-body force, as well as two-nucleon and three-nucleon interactions derived from the chiral effective field theory. Joined theoretical and experimental efforts, including research with radioactive isotope beams, are needed to provide insight into dynamical properties of nuclei away from the valley of stability, involving the interplay of isospin asymmetry, deformation and finite temperature.