Properties of Lithium-11 and Carbon-22 at leading order in halo effective field theory

Abstract

We study the ${}^{11}\mathrm{Li}$ and ${}^{22}\mathrm{C}$ nuclei at leading order (LO) in halo effective field theory (Halo EFT). Using the value of the ${}^{22}\mathrm{C}$ rms matter radius deduced in Ref. [1] as an input in a LO calculation, we simultaneously constrained the values of the two-neutron (2$n$) separation energy of ${}^{22}\mathrm{C}$ and the virtual-state energy of the ${}^{20}\mathrm{C}-$neutron system (hereafter denoted ${}^{21}$C). The 1$-\ddot{I}ƒ$ uncertainty of the input rms matter radius datum, along with the theory error estimated from the anticipated size of the higher-order terms in the Halo EFT expansion, gave an upper bound of about 100 keV for the 2$n$ separation energy. We also study the electric dipole excitation of 2$n$ halo nuclei to a continuum state of two neutrons and the core at LO in Halo EFT. We first compare our results with the ${}^{11}\mathrm{Li}$ data from a Coulomb dissociation experiment and obtain good agreement within the theoretical uncertainty of a LO calculation. We then obtain the low-energy spectrum of $B(E1)$ of this transition at several different values of the 2$n$ separation energy of ${}^{22}\mathrm{C}$ and the virtual-state energy of ${}^{21}\mathrm{C}$. Our predictions can be compared to the outcome of an ongoing experiment on the Coulomb dissociation of ${}^{22}\mathrm{C}$ to obtain tighter constraints on the two- and three-body energies in the ${}^{22}\mathrm{C}$ system.

6 pages, 3 figures; Contribution to the 21st International Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics