Investigating nuclear density profiles to reveal particle-hole configurations in the island of inversion

TL;DR

This study explores how nuclear density profiles in the island of inversion relate to particle-hole configurations and demonstrates that reaction and scattering cross sections can reveal these configurations, aiding in spin-parity determination.

Contribution

It introduces a method combining antisymmetrized molecular dynamics and Glauber model calculations to link density profiles with particle-hole configurations in exotic nuclei.

Findings

Density profiles correlate with particle-hole configurations.

Reaction and scattering cross sections reflect different configurations.

These cross sections can help determine nuclear spin-parity.

Abstract

Background: In the mass regions with an abnormal shell structure, the so-called ``island of inversion," the spin-parity of odd-mass nuclei provides quantitative insights into the shell evolution. However, the experimental determination of the spin-parity is often challenging, leaving it undetermined in many nuclei. Purpose: We discuss how the shell structure affects the density profiles of nuclei in the island of inversion and investigate whether these can be probed from the total reaction and elastic scattering cross sections. Method: The antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) is employed to generate various particle-hole configurations and predict the energy levels of these nuclei. The obtained density distributions are used as inputs to the Glauber model, which is employed to calculate the total reaction and elastic scattering cross sections for revealing their relationship to the particle-hole configurations. Results: In addition to the well-known correlation between nuclear deformation and radius, we show the correlations between the particle-hole configurations and both central density and diffuseness. We show that different particle-hole configurations are well reflected in the total reaction and elastic scattering cross sections. Conclusion: The total reaction and elastic scattering cross sections are useful probes to identify the spin-parity of nuclei when different particle-hole configurations coexist.