N. T. Zinner

Comparing and contrasting nuclei and cold atomic gases

The experimental revolution in ultracold atomic gas physics over the past decades have brought tremendous amounts of new insight to the world of degenerate quantum systems. Here we compare and constrast the developments of cold atomic gases with the physics of nuclei since many concepts, techniques, and nomenclatures are common to both fields. However, nuclei are finite systems with interactions that are typically much more complicated than those of ultracold atomic gases. The simularities and differences must therefore be carefully addressed for a meaningful comparison and to facilitate fruitful crossdisciplinary activity. Universal results from atomic physics should have impact in certain limits of the nuclear domain. In particular, with advances in the trapping of few-body atomic systems we expect a more direct exchange of ideas and results.

Neutrino-induced nucleosynthesis of a > 64 nuclei: The vp process

We present a new nucleosynthesis process that we denote as the nu p process, which occurs in supernovae (and possibly gamma-ray bursts) when strong neutrino fluxes create proton-rich ejecta. In this process, antineutrino absorptions in the proton-rich environment produce neutrons that are immediately captured by neutron-deficient nuclei. This allows for the nucleosynthesis of nuclei with mass numbers A>64, , making this process a possible candidate to explain the origin of the solar abundances of (92,94)Mo and (96,98)Ru. This process also offers a natural explanation for the large abundance of Sr seen in a hyper-metal-poor star.

Strongly interacting confined quantum systems in one dimension.

In one dimension, the study of magnetism dates back to the dawn of quantum mechanics when Bethe solved the famous Heisenberg model that describes quantum behaviour in magnetic systems. In the last decade, one-dimensional (1D) systems have become a forefront area of research driven by the realization of the Tonks-Girardeau gas using cold atomic gases. Here we prove that 1D fermionic and bosonic systems with strong short-range interactions are solvable in arbitrary confining geometries by introducing a new energy-functional technique and obtaining the full spectrum of energies and eigenstates. As a first application, we calculate spatial correlations and show how both ferro- and antiferromagnetic states are present already for small system sizes that are prepared and studied in current experiments. Our work demonstrates the enormous potential for quantum manipulation of magnetic correlations at the microscopic scale.

Neutron-induced astrophysical reaction rates for translead nuclei

Neutron-induced reaction rates, including fission and neutron capture, are calculated in the temperature range 10 8 ≤ T (K) ≤ 10 10 within the framework of the statistical model for targets with the atomic number 84 ≤ Z ≤ 118 (from Po to Uuo) from the neutron to the proton drip-line. Four sets of rates have been calculated, utilizing - where possible - consistent nuclear data for neutron separation energies and fission barriers from Thomas-Fermi (TF), Extended Thomas-Fermi plus Strutinsky Integral (ETFSI), Finite-Range Droplet Model (FRDM) and Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov (HFB) predictions. Tables of calculated values as well as analytic seven parameter fits in the standard REACLIB format are supplied. We also discuss the sensitivity of the rates to the input, aiming at a better understanding of the variations introduced by the nuclear input.

THE ROLE OF FISSION IN NEUTRON STAR MERGERS AND ITS IMPACT ON THE r-PROCESS PEAKS

M. Eichler, A. Arcones, A. Kelic, O. Korobkin, K. Langanke, T. Marketin, G. Martinez-Pinedo, I. Panov, T. Rauscher, S. Rosswog, C. Winteler, N. T. Zinner, and F. K. Thielemann, ‘The role of fission on neutron star mergers and its impact on the r-process peaks’, in proceedings CETUP* 2015 – Workshop on Dark Matter, Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics PPC 2015 – IXth International Conference on Interconnections between Particle Physics and Cosmology. Deadwood, South Dakota, USA. 15-17 July 2015. Barbara Szczerbinska, Rouzbeh Allahverdi, Kaladi Babu, Baha Balantekin, Bhaskar Dutta, Teruki Kamon, Jason Kumar, Farinaldo Queiroz, Louis Strigari, and Rebecca Surman eds., ISBN 9780735414006. Available online at doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4953296. Published by AIP Publishing.

Fermionization of two-component few-fermion systems in a one-dimensional harmonic trap

The nature of strongly interacting Fermi gases and magnetism is one of the most important and studied topics in condensed-matter physics. Still, there are many open questions. A central issue is under what circumstances strong short-range repulsive interactions are enough to drive magnetic correlations. Recent progress in the field of cold atomic gases allows one to address this question in very clean systems where both particle numbers, interactions and dimensionality can be tuned. Here we study fermionic few-body systems in a one dimensional harmonic trap using a new rapidly converging effective-interaction technique, plus a novel analytical approach. This allows us to calculate the properties of a single spin-down atom interacting with a number of spin-up particles, a case of much recent experimental interest. Our findings indicate that, in the strongly interacting limit, spin-up and spin-down particles want to separate in the trap, which we interpret as a microscopic precursor of one-dimensional ferromagnetism in imbalanced systems. Our predictions are directly addressable in current experiments on ultracold atomic few-body systems.

Competition between pairing and ferromagnetic instabilities in ultracold Fermi gases near Feshbach resonances.

We study the quench dynamics of a two-component ultracold Fermi gas from the weak into the strong interaction regime, where the short time dynamics are governed by the exponential growth rate of unstable collective modes. We obtain an effective interaction that takes into account both Pauli blocking and the energy dependence of the scattering amplitude near a Feshbach resonance. Using this interaction we analyze the competing instabilities towards Stoner ferromagnetism and pairing.

Bound states and universality in layers of cold polar molecules

The recent experimental realization of cold polar molecules in the rotational and vibrational ground state opens the door to the study of a wealth of phenomena involving long-range interactions. By applying an optical lattice to a gas of cold polar molecules one can create a layered system of planar traps. Due to the long-range dipole-dipole interaction one expects a rich structure of bound complexes in this geometry. We study the bilayer case and determine the two-body bound-state properties as a function of the interaction strength. The results clearly show that a least one bound state will always be present in the system. In addition, bound states at zero energy show universal behavior and extend to very large radii. These results suggest that non-trivial bound complexes of more than two particles are likely in the bilayer and in more complicated chain structures in multilayer systems.

BCS-BEC crossover in bilayers of cold fermionic polar molecules

We investigate the quantum and thermal phase diagram of fermionic polar molecules loaded in a bilayer trapping potential with perpendicular dipole moment. We use both a BCS-theory approach that is most reliable at weak coupling and a strong-coupling approach that considers the two-body bound dimer states with one molecule in each layer as the relevant degree of freedom. The system ground state is a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of dimer bound states in the low-density limit and a paired superfluid (BCS) state in the high-density limit. At zero temperature, the intralayer repulsion is found to broaden the regime of BCS-BEC crossover and can potentially induce system collapse through the softening of roton excitations. The BCS theory and the strongly coupled dimer picture yield similar predictions for the parameters of the crossover regime. The Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature of the dimer superfluid is also calculated. The crossover can be driven by many-body effects and is strongly affected by the intralayer interaction which was ignored in previous studies.

Model independence in two dimensions and polarized cold dipolar molecules.

We calculate the energy and wave functions of two particles confined to two spatial dimensions interacting via arbitrary anisotropic potentials with negative or zero net volume. The general rigorous analytic expressions are given in the weak coupling limit where universality or model independence are approached. The monopole part of anisotropic potentials is crucial in the universal limit. We illustrate the universality with a system of two arbitrarily polarized cold dipolar molecules in a bilayer. We discuss the transition to universality as a function of polarization and binding energy and compare analytic and numerical results obtained by the stochastic variational method. The universal limit is essentially reached for experimentally accessible strengths.