Neutron Skins of Nuclei

Europe/Berlin
02.430 (Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University)

02.430

Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University

Staudingerweg 9 / 2nd floor, 55128 Mainz
Description

What are the properties of nuclear matter which lead to the spectacular phenomena of supernovae explosions? What is the nature of neutron stars? How does subatomic matter organize itself? These and other fundamental questions about the nature of some of the most fascinating astrophysical objects as well as the characteristics of dense nuclear matter are determined by the nuclear equation of state (EOS). A key unknown of the EOS is the density dependence of the symmetry energy, which quantifies the change in nuclear energy associated with modifying the neutron-proton asymmetry. An accurate determination of the thickness of the neutron skin of a nucleus would provide a unique experimental constraint on the symmetry energy and ultimately on some critical properties of supernovae and neutron stars.

Recent developments in Effective Field Theory (EFT) for nuclear forces enable controlled calculations of matter at nuclear densities. This advance has opened up a new era in the study of strongly interacting nuclear matter. However, these theoretical approaches need guidance from experiment.

The Lead Radius EXperiment (PREX) has for the first time established the existence of a neutron skin in a clean and model-independent way at the 95% confidence level. The commissioning of new experimental programs on neutron skins of both stable and exotic beams, at JLab, MESA, FAIR and FRIB, makes urgent the need to bring together all stakeholders to review the recent progress, critically examine the new data, and suggest new directions in order to find common answers to some fundamental questions, both from the experimental and the theoretical side.

Concluding remarks pre-workshop 2015
Executive Summary (PDF)
Participants (PDF)
    • 9:00 AM 9:30 AM
      Introduction 30m
      Speaker: Jorge Piekarewicz (Florida State University)
      Slides
    • 9:30 AM 10:30 AM
      The PREX-I Results 1h
      Speaker: Krishna Kumar
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:00 AM
      PREX-II: Status and Plans 30m
      Speaker: Kent Paschke
      Slides
    • 11:00 AM 11:30 AM
      MREX 30m
      Speaker: Michaela Thiel (Institut fuer Kernphysik)
      Slides
    • 11:30 AM 12:00 PM
      Transverse Asymmetries 30m
      Speaker: Anselm Esser (Inst. f. Kernphysik / Uni Mainz)
      Slides
    • 12:00 PM 12:20 PM
      Beam Normal Spin Asymmetry: Theory Trivia 20m
      Speaker: Mikhail Gorshteyn
      Slides
    • 9:00 AM 10:00 AM
      Neutron Stars and the symmetry energy 1h
      Speaker: Andrew Steiner
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:00 AM
      Revealing the high-density EOS through binary neutron star merges 30m
      Speaker: Andreas Bauswein
      Slides
    • 11:00 AM 12:00 PM
      Neutron skins from coherent pion photoproduction 1h
      Speaker: Dan Watts
      Slides
    • 2:30 PM 3:00 PM
      K∞ and Kτ from the Giant Monopole Resonance 30m
      Speaker: Umesh Garg
      Slides
    • 3:00 PM 3:30 PM
      The radial shape of exotic nuclei from intermediate energy elastic proton scattering 30m
      Speaker: Peter Egelhof
      Slides
    • 3:30 PM 3:50 PM
      Coherent photoproduction of pions on spin-zero nuclei 20m
      Speaker: Slava Tsaran
      Slides
    • 9:00 AM 10:00 AM
      Neutron skin and dipole polarizability from first principles computations 1h
      Speaker: Gaute Hagen
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:00 AM
      The CREX experiment 30m
      Speaker: Juliette Mammei
      Slides
    • 11:00 AM 11:30 AM
      Super CREX 30m
      Speaker: Bob Michaels
      Slides
    • 11:30 AM 12:00 PM
      Measuring the full 48Ca weak charge density 30m
      Speaker: Charles Horowitz (Indiana University)
      Slides
    • 9:00 AM 10:00 AM
      Electric dipole polarisability studies by proton scattering 1h
      Speaker: Atsushi Tamii
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:00 AM
      The dipole polarisability and the neutron skin in medium and heavy mass nuclei 30m
      Speaker: Xavier Roca-Maza
      Slides
    • 11:00 AM 11:30 AM
      SCRIT electron scattering facility: present status and future perspectives 30m
      Speaker: Toshimi Suda
      Slides
    • 11:30 AM 12:00 PM
      Neutron skins probed with antiprotons 30m
      Speaker: Alexandre Obertelli
      Slides
    • 2:30 PM 3:00 PM
      Dipole polarisability in 48Ca 30m
      Speaker: Peter von Neumann-Cosel
      Slides
    • 9:00 AM 10:00 AM
      Nuclear radii in density functional theory 1h
      Speaker: Witek Nazarewicz
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:30 AM
      Nuclear forces and neutron skins 1h
      Speaker: Achim Schwenk
      Slides
    • 11:30 AM 12:00 PM
      Ab initio computations of the electric dipole polarisability 30m
      Speaker: Sonia Bacca
      Slides
    • 2:30 PM 3:00 PM
      Experimental picture of proton and neutron properties in 40Ca and 48Ca and its theoretical interpretation 30m
      Speaker: Willem Dickhoff
      Slides
    • 3:00 PM 3:30 PM
      Solenoid Spectrometers for Measuring Neutron Distributions 30m
      Speaker: Paul Souder
      Slides
    • 9:00 AM 10:00 AM
      Experiments with radioactive beams 1h
      Speaker: Tom Aumann
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:30 AM
      Exploring nucleon distributions of neutron-rich nuclei through reactions with rare isotope beams. 1h
      Speaker: Ritu Kanungo
    • 11:30 AM 12:30 PM
      Symmetry energy, neutron stars and supernovae 1h
      Speaker: Jürgen Schaffner-Bielich
      Slides
    • 2:30 PM 3:00 PM
      Symmetry energy and pure neutron systems 30m
      Speaker: Stefano Gandolfi
      Slides
    • 9:00 AM 10:00 AM
      Neutron skin and parity-violating transitions in atoms 1h
      Speaker: Vladimir Dzuba
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:00 AM
      Yb PNC experiment 30m
      Speaker: Dionysis Antypas
      Slides
    • 11:00 AM 11:30 AM
      A brief look "under the hood" of the Yb Parity violation Experiment 30m
      Speaker: Anne Fabricant
      Slides
    • 11:30 AM 12:00 PM
      Parity Violation in Dy: brief history and plans for experiment @ Mainz 30m
      Speaker: Lykourgos Bougas
      Slides
    • 9:00 AM 10:00 AM
      Concluding remarks 1h
      Speaker: Chuck Horowitz
      Slides
    • 10:30 AM 11:30 AM
      Concluding discussion 1h