Ab initio calculation of muon capture on ${}^{24}$Mg

Abstract

In this work we study ordinary muon capture (OMC) on ${}^{24}$Mg from a first principles perspective. Starting from a particular two- and three-nucleon interaction derived from chiral effective field theory, we use the valence-space in-medium similarity renormalization group (VS-IMSRG) framework to construct effective Hamiltonians and muon-capture operators which nonperturbatively account for many-body physics outside the valence space. The obtained nuclear matrix elements are compared against those from the phenomenological shell model. The impact of including the correlations from the nuclear shell model (NSM) as well as including the induced two-body part is studied in detail. Furthermore, the effects of realistic bound-muon wave function on the operators is studied. Finally, predictions for capture rates to the lowest excited states in ${}^{24}$Na are given and compared with available data. It is found that the spectroscopic properties of ${}^{24}$Mg and its OMC daughter ${}^{24}$Na are fairly well described by both the NSM and VS-IMSRG, and that the effect of the hadronic two-body currents significantly reduces the OMC rates. Both models have some difficulties in matching the measured OMC rates, especially for the $2^{+}$ final states. This calls for further studies in other light nuclei with available OMC data.

18 pages, 6 figures, 14 tables, including appendix. Corresponds to the published version

References in corpus (14)

• Chiral effective field theory and nuclear forces
• Improved nuclear matter calculations from chiral low-momentum interactions
• Phase space factors for double-$\beta$ decay
• Accurate nuclear radii and binding energies from a chiral interaction
• A nucleus-dependent valence-space approach to nuclear structure
• In-Medium Similarity Renormalization Group for Open-Shell Nuclei
• Converged ab initio calculations of heavy nuclei
• Phase space factors for ${\beta }^{+}{\beta }^{+}$ decay and competing modes of double-$\beta$ decay
• In-medium similarity renormalization group with three-body operators
• Measurement of Muon Capture on the Proton to 1% Precision and Determination of the Pseudoscalar Coupling g_P
• Systematics of E2 strength in the sd-shell with the valence-space in-medium similarity renormalization group
• Ab initio structure factors for spin-dependent dark matter direct detection
• Muon capture rates: Evaluation within the Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation
• Partial muon capture rates in $A=3$ and $A=6$ nuclei with chiral effective field theory

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Toward the discovery of matter creation with neutrinoless double-beta decay
• Recent progress in the electroweak structure of light nuclei using quantum Monte Carlo methods
• Muon Capture on ${}^6$Li, ${}^{12}$C, and ${}^{16}$O from $AbInitio$ Nuclear Theory
• The Role of Ab Initio Beta-Decay Calculations in Light Nuclei for Probes of Physics Beyond the Standard Model
• Two-body currents at finite momentum transfer and applications to M1 transitions