[Prex] Difference in proton radii of mirror nuclei as a possible surrogate for the neutron skin

[Jay Benesch]

https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.10182

Difference in proton radii of mirror nuclei as a possible surrogate for 
the neutron skin
Junjie Yang, J. Piekarewicz
(Submitted on 28 Sep 2017)

     It has been recently suggested that differences in the charge radii 
of mirror nuclei are proportional to the neutron-skin thickness of 
neutron-rich nuclei and to the slope of the symmetry energy L [B.A. 
Brown Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 122502 (2017)]. The determination of the 
neutron skin has important implications for nuclear physics and 
astrophysics. Although the use of electroweak probes provides a largely 
model-independent determination of the neutron skin, the experimental 
challenges are enormous. Thus, the possibility that differences in the 
charge radii of mirror nuclei may be used as a surrogate for the neutron 
skin is a welcome alternative. To test the validity of this assumption 
we perform calculations based on a set of relativistic energy density 
functionals that span a wide region of values of L. Our results confirm 
that the difference in charge radii of various neutron-deficient nickel 
isotopes and their corresponding mirror nuclei is indeed strongly 
correlated to both the neutron-skin thickness and L. Moreover, given 
that various neutron-star properties are also sensitive to L, a 
data-to-data relation emerges between the difference in charge radii of 
mirror nuclei and the radius of low-mass neutron stars.

Comments: 	5 pages, 3 figures
Subjects: 	Nuclear Theory (nucl-th); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 
(astro-ph.SR); Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)