Fermion Pair Dynamics in Open Quantum Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a time-dependent method to analyze two-nucleon decay in unbound isotopes, revealing how initial correlations influence emitted nucleons' dynamics and structure.

Contribution

A novel time-dependent approach for studying two-nucleon decay, benchmarked against Green's function, providing new insights into nucleon correlations and decay mechanisms.

Findings

Time evolution is affected by diproton/dineutron dynamics.

Nucleon correlations reveal initial-state dinucleon structure.

Method successfully applied to low-energy two-proton and two-neutron decays.

Abstract

Three-body decay is a rare decay mode observed in a handful of unbound rare isotopes. The angular and energy correlations between emitted nucleons are of particular interest, as they provide invaluable information on the interplay between structure and reaction aspects of the nuclear open quantum system. To study the mechanism of two-nucleon emission, we developed a time-dependent approach that allows us to probe emitted nucleons at long times and large distances. We successfully benchmarked the new method against the Green's function approach and applied it to low-energy two-proton and two-neutron decays. In particular, we studied the interplay between initial-state nucleon-nucleon correlations and final-state interaction. We demonstrated that the time evolution of the two-nucleon wave function is strongly impacted by the diproton/dineutron dynamics and that the correlations between emitted nucleons provide invaluable information on the dinucleon structure in the initial-state.