Quantal Nucleon Diffusion I: Central Collisions of Symmetric Nuclei

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum diffusion process of nucleon exchange in symmetric heavy-ion collisions using the Stochastic Mean-Field approach, highlighting the microscopic calculation of diffusion coefficients and comparison with semi-classical results.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic method to compute quantal diffusion coefficients for nucleon exchange, including memory effects, in symmetric nuclear collisions.

Findings

Quantal diffusion coefficients are successfully extracted microscopically.

Quantum calculations of nucleon variances are compared with semi-classical results.

Nucleon exchange can be described as a diffusion process at energies below the fusion barrier.

Abstract

Quantal diffusion mechanism of nucleon exchange is studied in the central collisions of several symmetric heavy-ion collisions in the framework of the Stochastic Mean-Field (SMF) approach. Since at bombarding energies below the fusion barrier, di-nuclear structure is maintained, it is possible to describe nucleon exchange as a diffusion process familiar from deep-inelastic collisions. Quantal diffusion coefficients, including memory effects, for proton and neutron exchanges are extracted microscopically employing the SMF approach. The quantal calculations of neutron and proton variances are compared with the semi-classical results.