Examination of experimental evidence of chaos in the bound states of Pb208

L. Muñoz, R. A. Molina, J. M. G. Gómez, and A. Heusler
Phys. Rev. C 95, 014317 – Published 18 January 2017

Abstract

We study the spectral fluctuations of the Pb208 nucleus using the complete experimental spectrum of 151 states up to excitation energies of 6.20 MeV recently identified at the Maier-Leibnitz Laboratorium at Garching, Germany. For natural parity states the results are very close to the predictions of random matrix theory (RMT) for the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution. A quantitative estimate of the agreement is given by the Brody parameter ω, which takes the value ω=0 for regular systems and ω1 for chaotic systems. We obtain ω=0.85 which is, to our knowledge, the closest value to chaos ever observed in experimental bound states of nuclei. By contrast, the results for unnatural parity states are far from RMT behavior. We interpret these results as a consequence of the strength of the residual interaction in Pb208, which, according to experimental data, is much stronger for natural than for unnatural parity states. In addition, our results show that chaotic and nonchaotic nuclear states coexist in the same energy region of the spectrum.

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  • Received 12 April 2016
  • Revised 30 June 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.95.014317

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Nuclear Physics

Authors & Affiliations

L. Muñoz1,*, R. A. Molina2, J. M. G. Gómez1, and A. Heusler3

  • 1Grupo de Física Nuclear, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense, E-28040 Madrid, Spain
  • 2Instituto de Estructura de la Materia, IEM-CSIC, Serrano 123, Madrid, E-28006, Spain
  • 3Gustav-Kirchhoff-Str. 7/1, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany

  • *lmunoz@ucm.es

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Vol. 95, Iss. 1 — January 2017

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