Electroweak probes of ground state densities

Abstract

Elastic electron scattering has been used to paint the most accurate picture of the proton distribution in atomic nuclei. Spurred by new experimental developments, it is now possible to gain valuable insights into the neutron distribution using exclusively electroweak probes. Our goal is to assess the information content and complementarity of the following three electroweak experiments in constraining the neutron distribution of atomic nuclei: (a) parity violating elastic electron scattering, (b) coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering, and (c) elastic electron scattering of unstable nuclei. Relativistic mean-field models informed by the properties of finite nuclei and neutron stars are used to compute ground state densities and form factors of a variety of nuclei. All the models follow the same fitting protocol, except for the assumed and presently unknown value of the neutron skin thickness of 208Pb. This enables one to tune the density dependence of the symmetry energy without compromising the success in reproducing well known physical observables. We found that the ongoing PREX-II and upcoming CREX campaigns at Jefferson Lab will play a vital role in constraining the weak form factor of xenon and argon, liquid noble gases that are used for the detection of both neutrinos and dark matter particles. We concluded that remarkable new advances in experimental physics have opened a new window into ground state densities of atomic nuclei using solely electroweak probes. The diversity and versatility of these experiments reveal powerful correlations that impose important nuclear structure constraints. In turn, these constraints provide quantitative theoretical uncertainties that are instrumental in searches for new physics and insights into the behavior of dense matter.

arXiv comment18 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (57)

• Recent Progress and New Challenges in Isospin Physics with Heavy-Ion Reactions
• Isospin Asymmetry in Nuclei and Neutron Stars
• Neutron Star Structure and the Neutron Radius of 208Pb
• Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering
• Constraints on the symmetry energy and neutron skins from experiments and theory
• Neutron-Rich Nuclei in Heaven and Earth
• Constraints on the density dependence of the symmetry energy
• Nuclear symmetry energy probed by neutron skin thickness of nuclei
• Measurement of the Neutron Radius of 208Pb Through Parity-Violation in Electron Scattering
• Relativistic Mean-Field Theory and the High-Density Nuclear Equation of State
• Determination of the stiffness of the nuclear symmetry energy from isospin diffusion
• Neutron Radii in Mean-Field Models
• Neutron skin of 208Pb, nuclear symmetry energy, and the parity radius experiment
• Unexpectedly large charge radii of neutron-rich calcium isotopes
• Charge, neutron, and weak size of the atomic nucleus
• Supernova Neutrino Detection
• Intermediate-Energy Semileptonic Probes of the Hadronic Neutral Current
• Low Mass Neutron Stars and the Equation of State of Dense Matter
• Electric dipole polarizability and the neutron skin
• Building relativistic mean field models for finite nuclei and neutron stars
• A way forward in the study of the symmetry energy: experiment, theory, and observation
• The neutron radii of Lead and neutron stars
• Density dependence of the symmetry energy and the nuclear equation of state: A Dynamical and Statistical model perspective
• Nuclear Mass Predictions for the Crustal Composition of Neutron Stars: A Bayesian Neural Network Approach
• Prospects for measuring coherent neutrino-nucleus elastic scattering at a stopped-pion neutrino source
• Bayesian approach to model-based extrapolation of nuclear observables
• Searching for isovector signatures in the neutron-rich oxygen and calcium isotopes
• Precision Measurement of the Weak Charge of the Proton
• Weak charge form factor and radius of 208Pb through parity violation in electron scattering
• Neutron drip line in the Ca region from Bayesian model averaging
• Parity-Violating Electron Scattering from 4He and the Strange Electric Form Factor of the Nucleon
• Nuclear charge radii: Density functional theory meets Bayesian neural networks
• Average CsI neutron density distribution from COHERENT data
• Supernova Observation Via Neutrino-Nucleus Elastic Scattering in the CLEAN Detector
• Charge Symmetry Breaking and QCD
• Neutron skins of atomic nuclei: per aspera ad astra
• Neutrino-nucleus coherent scattering as a probe of neutron density distributions
• Low-Energy Parity-Violation and New Physics
• Energy density functional for nuclei and neutron stars
• Parity Violating Elastic Electron Scattering and Coulomb Distortions
• Refining mass formulas for astrophysical applications: a Bayesian neural network approach
• Atomic Parity Nonconservation: Electroweak Parameters and Nuclear Structure
• Isospin Diffusion in Heavy-Ion Collisions and the Neutron Skin Thickness of Lead
• Impact of form factor uncertainties on interpretations of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering data
• Atomic Parity Non-Conservation, Neutron Radii, and Effective Field Theories of Nuclei
• Isotopic variation of parity violation in atomic ytterbium
• Nuclear Theory and Science of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams
• Theoretical study of elastic electron scattering off stable and exotic nuclei
• The power of two: Assessing the impact of a second measurement of the weak-charge form factor of 208Pb
• Validating neural-network refinements of nuclear mass models
• Impact of spin-orbit currents on the electroweak skin of neutron-rich nuclei
• The neutron skin thickness of ${}^{48}$Ca from a nonlocal-dispersive-optical-model analysis
• Difference in proton radii of mirror nuclei as a possible surrogate for the neutron skin
• The P2 Experiment - A future high-precision measurement of the electroweak mixing angle at low momentum transfer
• Atomic parity nonconservation and neutron radii in cesium isotopes
• Neutron rich matter in heaven and on Earth
• Direct determination of the neutron skin thicknesses in ${}^{40,48}$Ca from proton elastic scattering at $E_p=295$ MeV

Cited by in corpus (21)

• Accurate Determination of the Neutron Skin Thickness of ${}^{208}$Pb through Parity-Violation in Electron Scattering
• Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering: EFT analysis and nuclear responses
• Constraining nuclear physics parameters with current and future COHERENT data
• Flavor-dependent radiative corrections in coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• First-Generation New Physics in Simplified Models: From Low-Energy Parity Violation to the LHC
• Muon and electron g-2 and proton and cesium weak charges implications on dark ${\mathbf{Z}}_{\mathbf{d}}$ models
• Insights into nuclear saturation density from parity violating electron scattering
• New insights into nuclear physics and weak mixing angle using electroweak probes
• Electron Scattering and Neutrino Physics
• Modeling quasielastic interactions of monoenergetic kaon decay-at-rest neutrinos
• Theoretical tools for neutrino scattering: interplay between lattice QCD, EFTs, nuclear physics, phenomenology, and neutrino event generators
• Isotope dependence of muon-to-electron conversion
• Recent Progress in Low Energy Neutrino Scattering Physics and Its Implications for the Standard and Beyond the Standard Model Physics
• Beam-normal single-spin asymmetry in elastic scattering of electrons from a spin-0 nucleus
• Refined determination of the weak mixing angle at low energy
• Cross sections for coherent elastic and inelastic neutrino-nucleus scattering
• Simultaneous Extraction of the Weak Radius and the Weak Mixing Angle from Parity-Violating Electron Scattering on ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$
• From noise to information: The transfer function formalism for uncertainty quantification on nuclear density reconstruction
• Probing Fundamental Physics with Gravitational Waves
• Weak Charge Form Factor Determination at the Electron-Ion Collider
• Experimental nuclear charge density and theoretical description of the above-barrier light heavy-ion fusion process