Odd-Even Staggering of Nuclear Masses: Pairing or Shape Effect?, W. Satula et al.

Posted in Uncategorized on September 22nd, 2009 by mbertoll – Be the first to comment

A nice and not-too-old paper on the staggering of nuclear masses as a function of mass number.  A review style article on the topic was released later by the same authors.

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Book suggestion: A Course of Pure Mathematics, G. H. Hardy

Posted in Uncategorized on August 15th, 2009 by mbertoll – Be the first to comment

There likely cannot be enough praise for this book. Considered to offer the first rigorous treatment of mathematics from an English mathematician, Hardy’s book is both uniquely written and insightful in its proofs.  The book deals with general topics of analysis and calculus.  While intended as a first course for new university students, Hardy’s unique writing ability makes the book invaluable even to those well versed in mathematics at the graduate level.  In particular, this book is a great tool for physicists, who while compenent in mathematics are seldom exposed to the more rigorouse methodologies of pure mathematicians.  Hardy has produced a piece which is not merely a reference text, but an intriguing read not found in most course work.

Self-consistent Hartree–Fock mass formulae: a review, J. R. Stone

Posted in Uncategorized on April 19th, 2009 by mbertoll – Be the first to comment

A wonderful review of the current state of mean-field nuclear mass calculations (as of 2005). Stone’s treatment of the material is detailed, but accessible. It provides both a good introduction to the field as well as a meaningful review pinpointing both the successes and short-comings of several trends. A strong context of mass calculations in astrophysics is included.

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Pseudospin as a Relativistic Symmetry, J. Ginocchio

Posted in Uncategorized on February 27th, 2009 by mbertoll – Be the first to comment

An older PRL, but certainly worth a read. Ginocchio shows the underlying symmetry for a phenomenon thought to be a coincidence. The relationship he finds between spatial amplitudes of pseudospin degenerate wavefunction doublet components (discussed in detail in other papers) is elegant. A significant result is employing this symmetry can removed the need for a tensor component in NN interactions.

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Chiral three-nucleon interaction and the carbon-14 dating beta decay, Holt et al.

Posted in Uncategorized on February 22nd, 2009 by mbertoll – Be the first to comment

This is a continuation of the work published in PRL in 2007 (see below), pulled from last month’s arXiv listing.  In this publication the authors include 3-body effects, and it’s presentation is far more in-depth than was available in the group’s previous PRL.

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Shell model description of the 14C dating beta decay with Brown-Rho-scaled NN interactions, Holt et al.

Posted in Uncategorized on July 4th, 2008 by mbertoll – Be the first to comment

This is an older PRL editor’s pick from Oct. 2007.  It is of particular interest that the mean-life of 14C is unexpectedly long for its initial and final state (J,T) values.  Are there external interactions that could further affect the transition matrix?

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Suggested readings in nuclear theory

Posted in Uncategorized on June 30th, 2008 by mbertoll – Be the first to comment

On the home page it is my intent to post a paper of particular interest in the field of nuclear theory (or closely related) from time to time.  The papers will mostly be selected from recent pre-releases, as posted to the Archives, or PRL editor picks.  When applicable, notes may be included.