Ab initio computations of the fourth-order charge density moments of 48Ca and 208Pb

T. Miyagi; M. Heinz; A. Schwenk

doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140032

Ab initio computations of the fourth-order charge density moments of ⁴⁸Ca and ²⁰⁸Pb

T. Miyagi
, M. Heinz
, A. Schwenk

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Neutron skins of neutron-rich nuclei connect nuclei with the matter in neutron stars. High-precision measurements of nuclear charge densities to extract higher-order moments are proposed to be sensitive to neutron radii and skin thicknesses. We investigate the charge density of ⁴⁸Ca and ²⁰⁸Pb, leading candidates for such studies, with ab initio nuclear structure calculations. We find strong correlations between the fourth-order charge density moment R_ch⁴ and the charge and neutron radii, allowing us to predict R_ch⁴ for ⁴⁸Ca and ²⁰⁸Pb. We find a substantially weaker correlation between the fourth-order charge density moment and the neutron skin, limiting the ability of high-precision electron scattering to determine the neutron skin in a model-independent manner.

Original language	English
Article number	140032
Journal	Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
Volume	872
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140032
State	Published - Jan 2026

Funding

This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). We thank Pierre Arthuis for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by JST ERATO Grant No. JPMJER2304, Japan, by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 25K07294, 25K00995, and 25K07330, by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Office of Nuclear Physics, Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program (SciDAC-5 NUCLEI), by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of ak Ridge National Laboratory , managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy, and by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 101020842 ). This research used resources provided by Multidisciplinary Cooperative Research Program in Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba , by the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. https://www.gauss-centre.eu through the John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC) on JUWELS at Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), and of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory , which is supported by the Office of Science of the Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. We thank Pierre Arthuis for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by JST ERATO Grant No. JPMJER2304, Japan, by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 25K07294, 25K00995, and 25K07330, by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Office of Nuclear Physics, Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program (SciDAC-5 NUCLEI), by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of ak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy, and by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 101020842). This research used resources provided by Multidisciplinary Cooperative Research Program in Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba, by the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. https://www.gauss-centre.eu through the John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC) on JUWELS at Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), and of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

Keywords

Ab initio nuclear theory
Electron scattering
Neutron skin

Access to Document

10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140032

Cite this

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title = "Ab initio computations of the fourth-order charge density moments of 48Ca and 208Pb",

abstract = "Neutron skins of neutron-rich nuclei connect nuclei with the matter in neutron stars. High-precision measurements of nuclear charge densities to extract higher-order moments are proposed to be sensitive to neutron radii and skin thicknesses. We investigate the charge density of 48Ca and 208Pb, leading candidates for such studies, with ab initio nuclear structure calculations. We find strong correlations between the fourth-order charge density moment Rch4 and the charge and neutron radii, allowing us to predict Rch4 for 48Ca and 208Pb. We find a substantially weaker correlation between the fourth-order charge density moment and the neutron skin, limiting the ability of high-precision electron scattering to determine the neutron skin in a model-independent manner.",

keywords = "Ab initio nuclear theory, Electron scattering, Neutron skin",

author = "T. Miyagi and M. Heinz and A. Schwenk",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 The Authors.",

year = "2026",

month = jan,

doi = "10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140032",

language = "English",

volume = "872",

journal = "Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics",

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T1 - Ab initio computations of the fourth-order charge density moments of 48Ca and 208Pb

AU - Miyagi, T.

AU - Heinz, M.

AU - Schwenk, A.

PY - 2026/1

Y1 - 2026/1

N2 - Neutron skins of neutron-rich nuclei connect nuclei with the matter in neutron stars. High-precision measurements of nuclear charge densities to extract higher-order moments are proposed to be sensitive to neutron radii and skin thicknesses. We investigate the charge density of 48Ca and 208Pb, leading candidates for such studies, with ab initio nuclear structure calculations. We find strong correlations between the fourth-order charge density moment Rch4 and the charge and neutron radii, allowing us to predict Rch4 for 48Ca and 208Pb. We find a substantially weaker correlation between the fourth-order charge density moment and the neutron skin, limiting the ability of high-precision electron scattering to determine the neutron skin in a model-independent manner.

AB - Neutron skins of neutron-rich nuclei connect nuclei with the matter in neutron stars. High-precision measurements of nuclear charge densities to extract higher-order moments are proposed to be sensitive to neutron radii and skin thicknesses. We investigate the charge density of 48Ca and 208Pb, leading candidates for such studies, with ab initio nuclear structure calculations. We find strong correlations between the fourth-order charge density moment Rch4 and the charge and neutron radii, allowing us to predict Rch4 for 48Ca and 208Pb. We find a substantially weaker correlation between the fourth-order charge density moment and the neutron skin, limiting the ability of high-precision electron scattering to determine the neutron skin in a model-independent manner.

KW - Ab initio nuclear theory

KW - Electron scattering

KW - Neutron skin

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105022938706

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DO - 10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140032

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VL - 872

JO - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics

JF - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics

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