Elastic and quasi-elastic electron scattering off nuclei with neutron excess

TL;DR

This paper provides theoretical predictions for electron scattering on oxygen and calcium isotopes, analyzing elastic, quasi-elastic, and parity-violating asymmetries to understand nuclear structure and neutron excess effects.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic model to predict electron scattering observables across isotopic chains, including new predictions for parity-violating asymmetries in calcium isotopes.

Findings

Model agrees with existing data for 16O and 40Ca

Shows evolution of nuclear properties with neutron number

Provides predictions for upcoming CREX experiment

Abstract

We present theoretical predictions for electron scattering on oxygen and calcium isotopic chains. The calculations are done within the framework of the distorted-wave Born approximation and the proton and neutron density distributions are evaluated adopting a relativistic Dirac-Hartree model. We present results for the elastic and quasi-elastic cross sections and for the parity-violating asymmetry. As a first step, the results of the models are tested in comparison with some of the data available for elastic and quasi-elastic scattering on 16O and 40Ca nuclei. Then, the evolution of some nuclear properties is investigated as a function of the neutron number. We also present a comparison with the parity-violating asymmetry parameter obtained by the PREX Collaboration on 208Pb and give a prediction for the future experiment CREX on 48Ca.