Dissecting reaction calculations using Halo EFT and ab initio input

TL;DR

This paper combines Halo Effective Field Theory with the Dynamical Eikonal Approximation to accurately model halo nuclei break-up, demonstrating good agreement with experimental data and highlighting the importance of long-range properties and short-range physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach integrating Halo EFT with dynamical reaction modeling, improving the description of halo nuclei break-up processes using ab initio inputs.

Findings

Accurately reproduces long-range properties of halo nuclei.

Good agreement with experimental Coulomb break-up data on Pb.

Sensitivity of nuclear break-up to short-range physics.

Abstract

We present a description of the break-up of halo nuclei in peripheral nuclear reactions by coupling a model of the projectile motivated by Halo Effective Field Theory with a fully dynamical treatment of the reaction using the Dynamical Eikonal Approximation. Our description of the halo system reproduces its long-range properties, i.e., binding energy and asymptotic normalization coefficients of bound states and phase shifts of continuum states. As an application we consider the break-up of 11Be in collisions on Pb and C targets. Taking the input for our Halo-EFT-inspired description of 11Be from a recent ab initio calculation of that system yields a good description of the Coulomb-dominated breakup on Pb at energies up to about 2 MeV, with the result essentially independent of the short-distance part of the halo wave function. However, the nuclear dominated break-up on C is more sensitive to short-range physics. The role of spectroscopic factors and possible extensions of our approach to include additional short-range mechanisms are also discussed.