Low-lying electric-dipole strengths of Ca, Ni, and Sn isotopes imprinted on total reaction cross sections

TL;DR

This study explores how total reaction cross sections on specific targets can be used to probe low-lying electric-dipole ($E1$) strength in neutron-rich isotopes, revealing enhancements related to shell evolution and neutron skin properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates a method to infer low-lying $E1$ strength from reaction cross sections, incorporating detailed nuclear structure calculations and breakup process modeling.

Findings

Enhanced $E1$ strength observed at certain neutron numbers.

Total reaction cross sections vary with Skyrme interactions.

Appropriate incident energy enhances sensitivity to $E1$ strength.

Abstract

Low-lying electric-dipole ($E1$) strength of a neutron-rich nucleus contains information on neutron-skin thickness, deformation, and shell evolution. We discuss the possibility of making use of total reaction cross sections on $^{40}$Ca, $^{120}$Sn, and $^{208}$Pb targets to probe the $E1$ strength of neutron-rich Ca, Ni, and Sn isotopes. They exhibit large enhancement of the $E1$ strength at neutron number $N > 28$, $50$, and $82$, respectively, due to a change of the single-particle orbits near the Fermi surface participating in the transitions. The density distributions and the electric-multipole strength functions of those isotopes are calculated by the Hartree-Fock+BCS and the canonical-basis-time-dependent-Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov methods, respectively, using three kinds of Skyrme-type effective interaction. The nuclear and Coulomb breakup processes are respectively described with the Glauber model and the equivalent photon method in which the effect of finite-charge distribution is taken into account. The three Skyrme interactions give different results for the total reaction cross sections because of different Coulomb breakup contributions. The contribution of the low-lying $E1$ strength is amplified when the low-incident energy is chosen. With an appropriate choice of the incident energy and target nucleus, the total reaction cross section can be complementary to the Coulomb excitation for analysing the low-lying $E1$ strength of unstable nuclei.