Accurate Determination of the Neutron Skin Thickness of Pb<mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/>208 through Parity-Violation in Electron Scattering

2021/02/28 by D. Adhikari, H. Al-Bataineh, H. Albataineh +127 · 611 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Analytical Chemistry (journal) #Baryon #Combinatorics #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Neutron #Nuclear physics #Nuclear physics research studies #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Saturation (graph theory) #nucl-ex

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.126.172502

published in Physical Review Letters 126(17), 172502 (American Physical Society)

openalex created_date 2021/03/01 · arxiv created 2021/04/27 · openalex publication_date 2021/04/27 · arxiv updated 2021/05/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

We report a precision measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry A_PV in the elastic scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons from ²⁰⁸Pb. We measure A_PV=550±16(stat)±8(syst) parts per billion, leading to an extraction of the neutral weak form factor F_W(Q²=0.00616 GeV²)=0.368±0.013. Combined with our previous measurement, the extracted neutron skin thickness is R_n-R_p=0.283±0.071 fm. The result also yields the first significant direct measurement of the interior weak density of ²⁰⁸Pb: ρ_W⁰=-0.0796±0.0036(exp)±0.0013(theo) fm^-3 leading to the interior baryon density ρ_b⁰=0.1480±0.0036(exp)±0.0013(theo) fm^-3. The measurement accurately constrains the density dependence of the symmetry energy of nuclear matter near saturation density, with implications for the size and composition of neutron stars.

Citations

• The MOLLER Experiment: An Ultra-Precise Measurement of the Weak Mixing Angle Using Møller Scattering
• A New Parameterization for the Lagrangian Density of Relativistic Mean Field Theory
• Neutron-Rich Nuclei and Neutron Stars: A New Accurately Calibrated Interaction for the Study of Neutron-Rich Matter
• Strangeness in Nuclei and Neutron Stars
• GW190814: Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 23 M_\odot Black Hole with a 2.6 M_\odot Compact Object

Cited by

• Decoding the Density Dependence of the Nuclear Symmetry Energy
• Impact of PREX-II and Combined Radio/NICER/XMM-Newton’s Mass–radius Measurement of PSR J0740+6620 on the Dense-matter Equation of State
• Dynamical tides in neutron stars with first-order phase transitions: the role of the discontinuity mode
• Detailed examination of astrophysical constraints on the symmetry energy and the neutron skin of Pb<mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/>208 with minimal modeling assumptions
• Muon and electron g−2 and proton and cesium weak charges implications on dark Zd models
• Hot and Dense Matter Equation of State Probability Distributions for Astrophysical Simulations
• Expanding Nuclear Physics Horizons with the Gamma Factory
• Cusp in the Symmetry Energy, Speed of Sound in Neutron Stars and Emergent Pseudo-Conformal Symmetry