Three-Body Forces and the Limit of Oxygen Isotopes

2009/08/31 by Takaharu Otsuka, Toshio Suzuki, Jason D. Holt +5 · 486 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Anomaly (physics) #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomical and nuclear sciences #Atomic physics #Condensed matter physics #Isotope #Isotopes of oxygen #Line (geometry) #Materials science #Neutron #Nuclear drip line #Nuclear force #Nuclear physics #Nuclear physics research studies #Nucleon #Oxygen #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Shell (structure) #astro-ph.SR #hep-ph #nucl-ex #nucl-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.105.032501

published in Physical Review Letters 105(3), 032501 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in PRL

arxiv created 2010/06/19 · openalex publication_date 2010/07/13 · arxiv updated 2013/01/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

The limit of neutron-rich nuclei, the neutron drip line, evolves regularly from light to medium-mass nuclei except for a striking anomaly in the oxygen isotopes. This anomaly is not reproduced in shell-model calculations derived from microscopic two-nucleon forces. Here, we present the first microscopic explanation of the oxygen anomaly based on three-nucleon forces that have been established in few-body systems. This leads to repulsive contributions to the interactions among excess neutrons that change the location of the neutron drip line from (28)O to the experimentally observed (24)O. Since the mechanism is robust and general, our findings impact the prediction of the most neutron-rich nuclei and the synthesis of heavy elements in neutron-rich environments.

Citations

• Structure ofA=10–13Nuclei with Two- Plus Three-Nucleon Interactions from Chiral Effective Field Theory
• Evolution of Nuclear Shells due to the Tensor Force
• Magic Numbers in Exotic Nuclei and Spin-Isospin Properties of theNNInteraction

Cited by

• Medium-Mass Nuclei with Normal-Ordered ChiralNN+3NInteractions
• Evolution of Shell Structure in Neutron-Rich Calcium Isotopes
• Nucleus-Dependent Valence-Space Approach to Nuclear Structure
• Isotopic Chains Around Oxygen from Evolved Chiral Two- and Three-Nucleon Interactions
• N=16Spherical Shell Closure inO<mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/>24
• Ab Initio Limits of Atomic Nuclei
• Continuum Effects and Three-Nucleon Forces in Neutron-Rich Oxygen Isotopes
• Ab InitioCoupled-Cluster Effective Interactions for the Shell Model: Application to Neutron-Rich Oxygen and Carbon Isotopes
• Magic Nature of Neutrons in Ca<mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/>54: First Mass Measurements of Ca<mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/>55–57
• Three-Body Forces and Proton-Rich Nuclei
• Nuclear effective field theory: Status and perspectives
• Coupled-cluster computations of atomic nuclei
• Impact of tensor-rank components of chiral three-nucleon forces on the single-particle structure of calcium isotopes
• Masses of exotic nuclei
• The neutron dripline in calcium isotopes from a chiral interaction
• Recent progress in configuration–interaction shell model
• The In-Medium Similarity Renormalization Group: A Novel Ab Initio Method for Nuclei
• Many-body perturbation theories for finite nuclei
• Role of three-nucleon forces and many-body processes in nuclear pairing
• The role of three-nucleon potentials within the shell model: Past and present
• Lattice QCD approach to Nuclear Physics
• Chiral effective field theory and nuclear forces
• Fermion Interactions and Universal Behavior in Strongly Interacting Theories
• Formal Developments for Lattice QCD with Applications to Hadronic Systems
• Two-proton emission and related phenomena
• Nuclear structure and reaction studies at SPIRAL
• Renormalization Group and Fermi Liquid Theory for Many-Nucleon Systems
• Efficient calculation of chiral three-nucleon forces up toN3LOforab initiostudies
• Toward global beyond-mean-field calculations of nuclear masses and low-energy spectra
• Nuclear Matter from Effective Quark-Quark Interaction
• Positioning the neutron drip line and the r-process paths in the nuclear landscape
• Three-nucleon forces and nuclei at the extremes
• Shell structure from nuclear observables
• Chiral nucleon-nucleon forces in nuclear structure calculations
• Exploring the neutron dripline two neutrons at a time: The first observations of the26O and16Be ground state resonances
• The Calculation of Single-Nucleon Energies of Nuclei by Considering Two-Body Effective Interaction, n(k,ρ), and a Hartree-Fock Inspired Scheme
• Three-nucleon forces in the1/Ncexpansion
• Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations with Chiral Effective Field Theory Interactions
• Three-body correlations in nonlinear response of correlated quantum liquid
• Nuclear Forces and Their Impact on Neutron-Rich Nuclei and Neutron-Rich Matter
• Three-nucleon forces and spectroscopy of neutron-rich calcium isotopes
• Improved nuclear matter calculations from chiral low-momentum interactions
• From spin to pseudospin symmetry: The origin of magic numbers in nuclear structure
• Novel halos in light kaonic nuclei as an indicator of nuclear equation of state at supra-normal densities. [europepmc]
• Evidence for prevalent Z = 6 magic number in neutron-rich carbon isotopes. [europepmc]
• Ab initio predictions for polarized deuterium-tritium thermonuclear fusion. [europepmc]
• Three-body correlations in nonlinear response of correlated quantum liquid. [europepmc]
• First observation of 28 O. [europepmc]
• Benchmarking Λ NN three-body forces and first predictions for A = 3 - 5 hypernuclei. [europepmc]

Related

• Continuum Effects and Three-Nucleon Forces in Neutron-Rich Oxygen Isotopes
• Nuclear Forces and Their Impact on Neutron-Rich Nuclei and Neutron-Rich Matter
• Isotopic Chains Around Oxygen from Evolved Chiral Two- and Three-Nucleon Interactions
• On the nucleon instability of heavy oxygen isotopes
• Extending the north-east limit of the chart of nuclides