Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Moong, Gautam Rupak Lan Tai

Committee Member

Dutta, Dipangkar

Committee Member

Dunne, James A.

Committee Member

Monts, David L.

Committee Member

Srinivasan, Radhakrishnan

Date of Degree

8-17-2013

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Applied Physics

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

Effective field theory (EFT) provides a framework to exploit separation of scales in the physical system in order to perform systematic model-independent calculations. There has been significant interest in applying the methods of EFT to halo nuclei. Using halo effective field theory, I provide a model-independent calculation of the radiative neutron capture on lithium-7 over an energy range where the contribution from the 3+ resonance becomes important. This reaction initiate the sequence in the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) cycle in the inhomogeneous BBN models, and determine the amount of heavy element production from its reaction rate. One finds that a satisfactory description of the capture reaction, in the present single-particle approximation, suggests the use of a resonance width about three times larger than the experimental value. Power counting arguments that establish a hierarchy for the electromagnetic one- and two-body currents is also presented. The neutron capture of Lithium7 calculation has direct impact on the proton capture on beryllium7 which plays an important role in the neutrino experiments studying physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. As a further study of halo nuclei interactions, the cross section of radiative capture of a neutron by carbon-14 is calculated by considering the dominant contribution from electric dipole transition. This is also a part of the CNO cycle and as the slowest reaction in the chain it limits the flow of the production of heavier nuclei A > 14. The cross section is expressed in terms of the elastic scattering parameters of an effective range expansion. Contributions from both the resonant and non-resonant interactions are calculated. Significant interferences between these leads to a capture contribution that deviates from a simple Breit-Wigner resonance form. Using EFT, I present electromagnetic form factors of several halo nuclei. The magnetic dipole moment and the charge radii of carbon-15, beryllium-11, and carbon-19 halo systems are considered. Prediction is made for the magnetic moment in the leading order. I can only provide some estimates for the form factors in next-to-leading order where two-body currents appear. The estimates are based on power counting unless the effective range and the magnetic moment are known. Charge radii for three systems have also been estimated at LO and NLO.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/20248

Download

Share

COinS