Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 6: Structure and Dynamics of Nuclei 1

HK 6.5: Talk

Monday, March 23, 2015, 15:45–16:00, T/HS2

Time-dependent nuclear excitation dynamics in coherent gamma-ray fields — •Adriana Pálffy and Hans A. Weidenmüller — Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg

Recent experimental developments in laser physics hold promise to advance the new field of laser-induced nuclear reactions beyond known territory. At the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI), efforts are under way to generate multi-MeV zeptosecond coherent laser pulses. Consecutive absorption of many MeV-gamma rays would lead to the formation of a compound nucleus with excitation energy several hundreds MeV above yrast in a so-far totally unexplored parameter regime [1].

We have considered the laser-nucleus interaction in the quasiadiabatic regime, in which the nucleus (almost) attains statistical equilibrium between two subsequent photon absorption processes. The dynamics is described by means of a system of time-dependent master equations that account for the excitation and neutron decay of a chain of nuclei, with the rates involved depending on the total and partial nuclear level densities [2]. Our quantitative estimates predict the excitation path and range of nuclei reached by neutron decay and provide relevant information for the layout of future experiments.

[1] A. Pálffy and H. A. Weidenmüller, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 192502 (2014).

[2] A. Pálffy and H. A. Weidenmüller, Nucl. Phys. A 917, 15 (2013).