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Isospin quartic term in the kinetic energy of neutron-rich nucleonic matter

Bao-Jun Cai and Bao-An Li
Phys. Rev. C 92, 011601(R) – Published 2 July 2015

Abstract

The energy of a free gas of neutrons and protons is well known to be approximately isospin parabolic with a negligibly small quartic term of only 0.45 MeV at the saturation density of nuclear matter ρ0=0.16fm3. Using an isospin-dependent single-nucleon momentum distribution including a high (low) momentum tail (depletion) with its shape parameters constrained by recent high-energy electron scattering and medium-energy nuclear photodisintegration experiments as well as the state-of-the-art calculations of the deuteron wave function and the equation of state of pure neutron matter near the unitary limit within several modern microscopic many-body theories, we show for the first time that the kinetic energy of interacting nucleons in neutron-rich nucleonic matter has a significant quartic term of 7.18±2.52 MeV. Such a large quartic term has broad ramifications in determining the equation of state of neutron-rich nucleonic matter using observables of nuclear reactions and neutron stars.

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  • Received 3 March 2015
  • Revised 11 June 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.92.011601

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Bao-Jun Cai and Bao-An Li*

  • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, Texas 75429-3011, USA

  • *Bao-An.Li@tamuc.edu

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Issue

Vol. 92, Iss. 1 — July 2015

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