The halo of the exotic nucleus 11Li: a single Cooper pair

Abstract

If neutrons are progressively added to a normal nucleus, the Pauli principle forces them into states of higher momentum. When the core becomes neutron-saturated, the nucleus expels most of the wavefunction of the last neutrons outside to form a halo, which because of its large size can have lower momentum. It is an open question how nature stabilizes such a fragile system and provides the glue needed to bind the halo neutrons to the core. Here we show that this problem is similar to that of the instability of the normal state of an electron system at zero temperature solved by Cooper, solution which is at the basis of BCS theory of superconductivity. By mimicking this approach using, aside from the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction, the long wavelength vibrations of the nucleus ${}^{11}$Li, the paradigm of halo nuclei, as tailored glues of the least bound neutrons, we are able to obtain a unified and quantitative picture of the observed properties of ${}^{11}$Li.

16 pages, 1 b/w figures, 2 colour figures

Cited by in corpus (44)

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• Di-neutron correlation and soft dipole excitation in medium mass neutron-rich nuclei near drip-line
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• Comparing and contrasting nuclei and cold atomic gases
• Cooper pair transfer in nuclei
• Direct observation of the glue pairing the halo of the nucleus 11Li
• Microscopic calculation and LDA of the spatial dependence of the pairing field with bare and induced interactions
• Microscopic linear response calculations based on the Skyrme functional plus the pairing contribution
• Linear response of light deformed nuclei investigated by self-consistent quasiparticle random-phase-approximation
• Radii in weakly-bound light halo nuclei
• Strong dineutron correlation in 8He and 18C
• Expanding Nuclear Physics Horizons with the Gamma Factory
• Thermodynamics of pairing in mesoscopic systems
• Quasiparticle Renormalization and Pairing Correlations in Spherical Superfluid Nuclei
• Relativistic description of BCS-BEC crossover in nuclear matter
• Structure and reactions of 11Be: many-body basis for single-neutron halo
• Pairing collectivity in medium-mass neutron-rich nuclei near drip-line
• Neutron pair transfer in sub-barrier capture process
• Description of the ${}^{11}$Li$(p,d){}^{10}$Li transfer reaction using structure overlaps from a full three-body model
• Continuum quasiparticle random phase approximation for astrophysical direct neutron capture reaction of neutron-rich nuclei
• Linking structure and dynamics in $(p,pn)$ reactions with Borromean nuclei: the ${}^{11}$Li$(p,pn){}^{10}$Li case
• Chiral three-nucleon forces and pairing in nuclei
• Di-neutron correlation in soft octupole excitations of neutron-rich Ni isotopes beyond N=50
• Unified description of structure and reactions: implementing the Nuclear Field Theory program
• Are there good probes for the di-neutron correlation in light neutron-rich nuclei?
• Cooper pair sizes in 11Li and in superfluid nuclei: a puzzle?
• A new approach to investigate dineutron correlation and its application to ${}^{10}$Be
• Medium polarization effects in 3SD1 spin-triplet pairing
• Effective interactions between nuclear clusters
• Asymptotics of neutron Cooper pair in weakly bound nuclei
• Difference between stable and exotic nuclei: medium polarization effects
• Weak binding effects on the structure of ${}^{40}$Mg
• Cooper pairs in the Borromean nuclei ${}^6$He and ${}^{11}$Li using continuum single particle level density
• Pairing Correlations in Odd-Mass Carbon Isotopes and Effect of Pauli Principle in Particle-Core Coupling in 13C and 11Be
• The 9Li(d,p) reaction, a specific probe of 10Li, paradigm of parity--inverted nuclei around N=6 closed shell
• Characterization of vorticity in pygmy resonances and soft-dipole modes with two-nucleon transfer reactions
• Pygmy resonances: what's in a name?
• Pygmy resonances and symmetry energy
• Di-neutron correlation in light neutron-rich nuclei
• Radioactive beams and inverse kinematics: probing the quantal texture of the nuclear vacuum
• Single Cooper pair transfer in stable and in exotic nuclei
• Spatial correlation of a particle-hole pair with a repulsive isovector interaction
• One- and two- neutron halo at the dripline. From 11Be to 11Li and back: 10Li and parity inversion