High-spin torus isomers and their precession motions

TL;DR

This paper explores the existence and dynamic behavior of high-spin torus-shaped nuclear isomers across several nuclei, revealing their formation mechanisms and precession motions with moments of inertia close to classical values.

Contribution

It systematically identifies high-spin torus isomers in multiple nuclei using advanced Hartree-Fock methods and analyzes their precession motions, expanding understanding of exotic nuclear shapes.

Findings

High-spin torus isomers exist in nuclei from $^{36}$Ar to $^{52}$Fe.

All identified torus isomers exhibit precession motion with moments of inertia near the classical rigid-body value.

Torus shapes are generated beyond large oblate deformation by removing $0s$ components from wave functions.

Abstract

We systematically investigate the existence of exotic torus isomers and their precession motions for a series of $N=Z$ even-even nuclei from $^{28}$Si to $^{56}$Ni. We analyze the microscopic shell structure of the torus isomer and discuss why the torus shape is generated beyond the limit of large oblate deformation. We use the cranked three-dimensional Hartree-Fock (HF) method with various Skyrme interactions in a systematic search for high-spin torus isomers. We use the three-dimensional time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) method for describing the precession motion of the torus isomer. We obtain high-spin torus isomers in $^{36}$Ar, $^{40}$Ca, $^{44}$Ti, $^{48}$Cr, and $^{52}$Fe. The emergence of the torus isomers is associated with the alignments of single-particle angular momenta, which is the same mechanism as found in $^{40}$Ca. It is found that all the obtained torus isomers execute the precession motion at least two rotational periods. The moment of inertia about a perpendicular axis, which characterizes the precession motion, is found to be close to the classical rigid-body value. The high-spin torus isomer of $^{40}$Ca is not an exceptional case. Similar torus isomers exist widely in nuclei from $^{36}$Ar to $^{52}$Fe and they execute the precession motion. The torus shape is generated beyond the limit of large oblate deformation by eliminating the $0s$ components from all the deformed single-particle wave functions to maximize their mutual overlaps.