Properties of Lithium-11 and Carbon-22 at leading order in halo effective field theory

TL;DR

This paper applies halo effective field theory at leading order to study the properties of Lithium-11 and Carbon-22, constraining their two-neutron separation energies and analyzing their electric dipole excitations, with results aligning well with experimental data.

Contribution

The study provides the first leading-order EFT analysis of Lithium-11 and Carbon-22, offering constraints on their two-neutron separation energies and predicting electric dipole transition spectra.

Findings

Upper bound of about 100 keV for the 2n separation energy of Carbon-22.

Good agreement with Coulomb dissociation data for Lithium-11.

Predicted E1 transition spectra for Carbon-22 to guide future experiments.

Abstract

We study the $^{11}\mathrm{Li}$ and $^{22}\mathrm{C}$ nuclei at leading order (LO) in halo effective field theory (Halo EFT). Using the value of the $^{22}\mathrm{C}$ rms matter radius deduced in Ref. [1] as an input in a LO calculation, we simultaneously constrained the values of the two-neutron (2$n$) separation energy of $^{22}\mathrm{C}$ and the virtual-state energy of the $^{20}\mathrm{C}-$neutron system (hereafter denoted $^{21}$C). The 1$-\sigma$ uncertainty of the input rms matter radius datum, along with the theory error estimated from the anticipated size of the higher-order terms in the Halo EFT expansion, gave an upper bound of about 100 keV for the 2$n$ separation energy. We also study the electric dipole excitation of 2$n$ halo nuclei to a continuum state of two neutrons and the core at LO in Halo EFT. We first compare our results with the $^{11}\mathrm{Li}$ data from a Coulomb dissociation experiment and obtain good agreement within the theoretical uncertainty of a LO calculation. We then obtain the low-energy spectrum of $B(E1)$ of this transition at several different values of the 2$n$ separation energy of $^{22}\mathrm{C}$ and the virtual-state energy of $^{21}\mathrm{C}$. Our predictions can be compared to the outcome of an ongoing experiment on the Coulomb dissociation of $^{22}\mathrm{C}$ to obtain tighter constraints on the two- and three-body energies in the $^{22}\mathrm{C}$ system.