Heavy Ion Double Charge Exchange Reactions as Probes for Two-Body Transition Densities

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that heavy ion double charge exchange reactions can probe two-body transition densities, providing insights into nuclear structure and processes like neutrinoless double beta decay.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for analyzing DCE reactions as a tool to access two-body transition densities in nuclei.

Findings

Applied the model to $^{18}O+{}^{76}Se$ reaction at 270 MeV.

Showed DCE reactions can reveal two-body transition densities.

Provided a method to connect reaction data with nuclear matrix elements.

Abstract

Collisional heavy ion double charge exchange (DCE) reactions, induced by second order nucleon-nucleon interactions, are shown to provide access to the two-body transition densities of the complementary DCE transitions in the interacting nuclei. Corresponding two-body operators are introduced, treating the second order distorted wave reaction amplitude in the s-channel interaction form. The theoretical results are applied to the reaction $^{18}O+{}^{76}Se\to {} ^{18}Ne+{}^{76}Ge$ at $T_{lab}=270$~MeV, being $^{76}Ge$ a candidate for neutrino--less double beta decay.