Pith. sign in

REVIEW 7 cited by

Ab initio predictions link the neutron skin of {}²⁰⁸Pb to nuclear forces

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2112.01125 v2 pith:SQ7MYU7H submitted 2021-12-02 nucl-th astro-ph.HEnucl-ex

Ab initio predictions link the neutron skin of ${}^{208}$Pb to nuclear forces

classification nucl-th astro-ph.HEnucl-ex
keywords neutronnuclearforcesheavynucleinucleuspredictionsproperties
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
Share X Bluesky LinkedIn Reddit HN
abstract

Heavy atomic nuclei have an excess of neutrons over protons, which leads to the formation of a neutron skin whose thickness is sensitive to details of the nuclear force. This links atomic nuclei to properties of neutron stars, thereby relating objects that differ in size by orders of magnitude. The nucleus ${}^{208}$Pb is of particular interest because it exhibits a simple structure and is experimentally accessible. However, computing such a heavy nucleus has been out of reach for ab initio theory. By combining advances in quantum many-body methods, statistical tools, and emulator technology, we make quantitative predictions for the properties of ${}^{208}$Pb starting from nuclear forces that are consistent with symmetries of low-energy quantum chromodynamics. We explore $10^9$ different nuclear-force parameterisations via history matching, confront them with data in select light nuclei, and arrive at an importance-weighted ensemble of interactions. We accurately reproduce bulk properties of ${}^{208}$Pb and determine the neutron skin thickness, which is smaller and more precise than a recent extraction from parity-violating electron scattering but in agreement with other experimental probes. This work demonstrates how realistic two- and three-nucleon forces act in a heavy nucleus and allows us to make quantitative predictions across the nuclear landscape.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 7 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Ab initio calculations of parity-violating electron scattering off $^{48}$Ca and $^{208}$Pb

    nucl-th 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 8.0

    Ab initio chiral EFT calculations of parity-violating asymmetries for 48Ca and 208Pb show mild tension with data and infer a neutron skin of 0.187(25)(18) fm for 208Pb.

  2. Medium-mass nuclei with neural quantum states

    nucl-th 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.5

    Pfaffian-Jastrow neural quantum states yield ground-state energies and charge radii for nuclei up to A=58, with weak p-wave terms reducing average energy error to ~3% while revealing Hamiltonian sensitivity and A^3 scaling.

  3. Constraining Hamiltonians from chiral effective field theory with neutron-star data

    nucl-th 2026-01 conditional novelty 6.0

    Neutron-star data, run through fast emulators, directly constrain the six two-nucleon low-energy constants of an N2LO chiral Hamiltonian, with future detectors able to strongly pin down the 3P1 channel.

  4. Perturbative calculations of light nuclei up to N$^3$LO in chiral effective field theory

    nucl-th 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Perturbative N3LO calculations in chiral EFT with RG-guided power counting yield robust predictions for light nuclei energies when calibrated on the tritium binding energy.

  5. Disentangling baryon stopping and neutron skin effects in heavy-ion collisions

    hep-ph 2026-02 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Statistical model analysis of isobar collisions extracts a baryon-stopping parameter and introduces an r^OX observable whose central-to-peripheral ratio probes neutron-skin thickness.

  6. Chiral interactions and superfluidity in the calcium isotopic chain

    nucl-th 2026-01 conditional novelty 5.0

    Neutron pairing gaps in calcium isotopes are insensitive to variations in third-order chiral interactions, indicating that nuclear superfluidity requires improved many-body modeling or higher-order terms.

  7. Future directions in nuclear $\beta$ decay at FRIB and beyond

    nucl-th 2026-07 unverdicted

    A community white paper summarizing the current state and future directions of nuclear beta-decay studies at FRIB, with no new quantitative result.