Green's Function Knockout Formalism

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new formalism for knockout and transfer reactions that consistently combines nuclear structure and reaction dynamics using dispersive optical potentials, addressing limitations of previous models especially for exotic nuclei.

Contribution

It develops a comprehensive formalism that incorporates dynamical effects and structure-reaction interplay for nucleon removal and addition, improving understanding of reactions in exotic nuclei.

Findings

Includes dynamical effects in nucleon removal reactions.

Addresses the quenching of spectroscopic factors in neutron-rich nuclei.

Provides a unified framework for structure and reaction analysis.

Abstract

Knockout nuclear reactions, in which a nucleon is removed from a nucleus as a result of the collision with another nucleus, have been widely used as an experimental tool, both to populate isotopes further removed from stability, and to obtain information about the single-particle nature of the nuclear spectrum. In order to fully exploit the experimental information, theory is needed for the description of both the structure of the nuclei involved, and the dynamics associated with the nucleon removal mechanisms. The standard approach, using theoretical shell-model spectroscopic factors for the structure description coupled with an eikonal model of reaction, has been successful when used in the context of the removal of valence nucleons in nuclei close to stability. However, it has been argued that the reaction theory might need to be revisited in the case of exotic nuclei, more specifically for highly asymmetric nuclei in which the deficient species (neutrons or protons) is being removed. We present here a new formalism for the nucleon-removal and -addition reaction through knockout and transfer reactions, that treats consistently structure and reaction properties using dispersive optical potentials. In particular, our formalism includes the dynamical effects associated with the removal of a neutron from the projectile, which might explain the long standing puzzle of the quenching of spectroscopic factors in nuclei with extreme neutrons-to-protons ratios.