Missed prediction of the neutron halo in ${}^{37}$Mg

Abstract

Halo phenomena have long been an important frontier in both experimental and theoretical nuclear physics. ${}^{37}$Mg was identified as a halo nucleus in 2014 and remains the heaviest nuclear halo system to date. While the halo phenomenon in ${}^{37}$Mg was not predicted before the discovery, its description has been still challenging afterwards. In this Letter, we report a microscopic and self-consistent description of the neutron halo in ${}^{37}$Mg using the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum (DRHBc) that was developed in 2010. The experimental neutron separation energies and empirical matter radii of neutron-rich magnesium isotopes as well as the deformed $p$-wave halo characteristics of ${}^{37}$Mg are well reproduced without any free parameters. In particular, the orbital occupied by the halo neutron in ${}^{37}$Mg, exhibiting $p$-wave components comparable to those suggested in experiments, remains consistent across various employed density functionals including PC-F1, PC-PK1, NL3*, and PK1. The DRHBc theory investigated only even-even magnesium isotopes in previous works and for that reason missed predicting ${}^{37}$Mg as a halo nucleus before 2014. Although the core and the halo of ${}^{37}$Mg are both prolate, higher-order shape decoupling on the hexadecapole and hexacontatetrapole levels is predicted.

updated references and figure 3; matches the published version; 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Examination of the evidence for a proton halo in ${}^{22}$Al
• Nuclear shape evolution of neutron-deficient Au and kink structure of Pb isotopes
• Prediction of two-neutron halos in the $N=28$ isotones ${}^{40}$Mg and ${}^{39}$Na
• Triaxial relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum for exotic nuclei
• Ground-state properties and structure evolutions of odd-$A$ transuranium Bk isotopes from deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum
• Exploratory study on the masses of odd-$Z$ nuclei and $r$-process simulation based on the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum
• Implication of odd-even staggering in the charge radii of calcium isotopes