Probing neutron-skin thickness with total reaction cross sections

Abstract

We analyze total reaction cross sections, ${\sigma }_R$, for exploring their sensitivity to the neutron-skin thickness of nuclei. We cover 91 nuclei of O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ca, and Ni isotopes. The cross sections are calculated in the Glauber theory using the density distributions obtained with the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock method in 3-dimensional coordinate space. Defining a reaction radius, $a_R=\sqrt{{\sigma }_R/\pi }$, to characterize the nuclear size and target (proton or ${}^{12}$C) dependence, we find an empirical formula for expressing $a_R$ with the point matter radius and the skin thickness, and assess two practical ways of determining the skin thickness from proton-nucleus ${\sigma }_R$ values measured at different energies or from ${\sigma }_R$ values measured for different targets.

6 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. C

References in corpus (8)

• Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
• Neutron skin of 208Pb, nuclear symmetry energy, and the parity radius experiment
• ${}^{22}$C: $S$-Wave Two-Neutron Halo
• Proton elastic scattering from tin isotopes at 295 MeV and systematic change of neutron density distributions
• Neutron skin uncertainties of Skyrme energy density functionals
• Coulomb corrected eikonal description of the breakup of halo nuclei
• Elastic and total reaction cross sections of oxygen isotopes in Glauber theory
• Low-energy E1 strength in select nuclei: Possible constraints on the neutron skins and the symmetry energy

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Examination of the ${}^{22}$C radius determination with interaction cross sections
• Towards a Unified Model of Neutrino-Nucleus Reactions for Neutrino Oscillation Experiments
• Nuclear surface diffuseness revealed in nucleon-nucleus diffraction
• Charge-changing cross sections for ${}^{42\text{–}51}$Ca and effect of charged-particle evaporation induced by neutron removal reaction
• Ground-state properties and symmetry energy of neutron-rich and neutron-deficient Mg isotopes
• Core swelling in spherical nuclei: An indication of the saturation of nuclear density
• Neutron-skin thickness determines the surface tension of a compressible nuclear droplet
• Large enhancement of total reaction cross sections at the edge of the island of inversion in Ti, Cr, and Fe isotopes
• Density profiles near nuclear surface of ${}^{44,52}$Ti: An indication of $\alpha$ clustering
• Evidence of bicluster structure in the ground state of ${}^{20}$Ne
• New measurement of the elemental fragmentation cross sections of 218 MeV/nucleon 28 Si on a carbon target
• Low-lying electric-dipole strengths of Ca, Ni, and Sn isotopes imprinted on total reaction cross sections
• Total reaction cross section on a deuteron target and the eclipse effect of the constituent neutron and proton
• Enlarged deformation region in neutron-rich Zr isotopes by the second intruder orbit
• Incomplete absorption reactions at high energy
• Utility of antiproton-nucleus scattering for probing nuclear surface density distributions
• Neutron radii and neutron skin of neutron-rich nuclei deduced from proton-nucleus total reaction cross sections
• Empirical Parameterization of Nucleon-Nucleon Elastic Scattering Amplitude at High Beam Momenta for Glauber Calculations and Monte Carlo Simulations