Determination of the neutron skin of $^{208}$Pb from ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: Determination of the neutron skin of $^{208}$Pb from ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions
المؤلفون: Giacalone, Giuliano, Nijs, Govert, van der Schee, Wilke
المصدر: Phys.Rev.Lett. 131 (2023) 20, 202302
سنة النشر: 2023
المجموعة: Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Experiment
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Experiment
Nuclear Theory
مصطلحات موضوعية: Nuclear Theory, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, High Energy Physics - Experiment, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology, Nuclear Experiment
الوصف: Emergent bulk properties of matter governed by the strong nuclear force give rise to physical phenomena across vastly different scales, ranging from the shape of atomic nuclei to the masses and radii of neutron stars. They can be accessed on Earth by measuring the spatial extent of the outer skin made of neutrons that characterises the surface of heavy nuclei. The isotope $^{208}$Pb, owing to its simple structure and neutron excess, has been in this context the target of many dedicated efforts. Here, we determine the neutron skin from measurements of particle distributions and their collective flow in $^{208}$Pb+$^{208}$Pb collisions at ultrarelativistic energy performed at the Large Hadron Collider, which are sensitive to the overall size of the colliding $^{208}$Pb ions. By means of state-of-the-art global analysis tools within the hydrodynamic model of heavy-ion collisions, we infer a neutron skin $\Delta r_{np}=0.217\pm0.058$ fm, consistent with nuclear theory predictions, and competitive in accuracy with a recent determination from parity-violating asymmetries in polarised electron scattering. We establish thus a new experimental method to systematically measure neutron distributions in the ground state of atomic nuclei.
Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. The Trajectum code can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/govertnijs/trajectum. Plotting routines can be found at http://wilkevanderschee.nl/trajectum. v2 expanded appendices, matches published version
نوع الوثيقة: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.202302
URL الوصول: http://arxiv.org/abs/2305.00015
رقم الأكسشن: edsarx.2305.00015
قاعدة البيانات: arXiv
الوصف
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.202302