Items of Interest

Effects of three-nucleon forces and scattering states shape exotic isotopes of oxygen and calcium

State-of-the-art computation of exotic isotopes of oxygen and calcium including the effects of three-body forces and the scattering states.
Confirmation of experimentally known shell structure and prediction of excited states in isotopes of oxygen.
Prediction of shell structure in ⁵⁴Ca (which contains 14 more neutrons than most of the calcium in our teeth and bones).
⁵⁴Ca exhibits only a soft sub-shell closure, and the ordering of single-particle states differs from the traditional shell model.
The theoretical prediction of the structure of ⁵⁴Ca was very recently confirmed experimentally at the RIKEN in Japan.

For more information contact: Gaute Hagen (hageng@ornl.gov).

References: Hagen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 242501 (2012); Hagen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 032502 (2012)

Computed states (red) compared to the few experimentally known states (black) in neutron-rich isotopes of calcium.