Nuclear Seminar

To chiral rotation and back again

S. Daniel Almehed
University of Notre Dame

Monday, February 5, 2007   4:00 p.m.   NSH 124
(Refreshments served prior to seminar in NSH 124)

 

Several near degenerate rotational bands with the same parity have been found in the A=135 and A=105 mass regions where triaxiality of the nuclear shape appears. Some of these have been interpreted as chiral rotational bands within the Tilted Axis Cranking (TAC) model. Chiral rotation can appear in triaxial nuclei when proton and neutrons align along different principal axes and the collective rotation occurs along the third. These bands can sometimes be interpreted as a chiral vibration, which is a vibration of the orientation of the principal axes of the nucleus with respect to the angular momentum vector.  Chiral vibration can be studied with the RPA plus TAC formalism.  I examine the limits of chiral rotation as a function of particle number and angular momentum in the A=135 region.  The properties of the RPA phonons are discussed and compared to experimental data..