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Probing Nuclear Structure with Kaonic Atoms through E2 Resonance Mixing

Simone Manti, Luca De Paolis, Leonardo Abbene, Francesco Artibani, Massimiliano Bazzi, Giacomo Borghi, Damir Bosnar, Mario Bragadireanu, Antonino Buttacavoli, Mario Carminati, Alberto Clozza, Francesco Clozza, Raffaele Del Grande, Kamil Dulski, Carlo Fiorini, Ivica Friščić, Carlo Guaraldo, Mihai Iliescu, Paul Indelicato, Masa Iwasaki, Alexander Khreptak, Johan Marton, Pawel Moskal, Hiroaki Ohnishi, Kristian Piscicchia, Fabio Principato, Alessandro Scordo, Francesco Sgaramella, Michał Silarski, Diana Sirghi, Florin Sirghi, Magdalena Skurzok, Antonio Spallone, Kairo Toho, Johann Zmeskal, Catalina Curceanu

Abstract

Kaonic atoms provide a unique laboratory to investigate the interplay between atomic, nuclear, and strong-interaction physics. In heavy nuclei, atomic transitions can couple to low-lying collective nuclear excitations via the electric quadrupole interaction. When the energy difference between two kaonic atomic levels approaches that of a nuclear $2^+$ excitation, a resonant configuration mixing may occur, known as the E2 nuclear resonance effect. In this work, we investigate the conditions for E2 resonance in kaonic molybdenum isotopes. We describe the mixing using state-of-the-art Dirac-Fock calculations combined with updated nuclear structure inputs, including recent electric quadrupole transition strength values and excitation energies. We evaluate the sensitivity of the effect to key parameters, assess its observability in future experiments such as the EXKALIBUR program, and discuss its impact on cascade dynamics. Our results demonstrate the potential of kaonic atoms as a probe of nuclear structure, complementary to conventional nuclear spectroscopy.

Probing Nuclear Structure with Kaonic Atoms through E2 Resonance Mixing

Abstract

Kaonic atoms provide a unique laboratory to investigate the interplay between atomic, nuclear, and strong-interaction physics. In heavy nuclei, atomic transitions can couple to low-lying collective nuclear excitations via the electric quadrupole interaction. When the energy difference between two kaonic atomic levels approaches that of a nuclear excitation, a resonant configuration mixing may occur, known as the E2 nuclear resonance effect. In this work, we investigate the conditions for E2 resonance in kaonic molybdenum isotopes. We describe the mixing using state-of-the-art Dirac-Fock calculations combined with updated nuclear structure inputs, including recent electric quadrupole transition strength values and excitation energies. We evaluate the sensitivity of the effect to key parameters, assess its observability in future experiments such as the EXKALIBUR program, and discuss its impact on cascade dynamics. Our results demonstrate the potential of kaonic atoms as a probe of nuclear structure, complementary to conventional nuclear spectroscopy.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 5 sections, 9 equations, 2 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. E2 nuclear resonance mixing in kaonic atoms
  3. Results for KMo and future perspectives
  4. Conclusions and Outlook
  5. Acknowledgments

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Schematic illustration of the E2 nuclear resonance effect in kaonic atoms. When the energy difference between two kaonic atomic states, $E_{\mathrm{atom}}(n,l) - E_{\mathrm{atom}}(n-2,l-2)$, is close to the energy of a nuclear quadrupole excitation $E(0^+ \rightarrow 2^+)$, a resonant coupling arises via the electric quadrupole interaction. This leads to a mixing between the states $\ket{n,l;0^+}$ and $\ket{n-2,l-2;2^+}$, with the latter having shift and width $\epsilon_{n-2,l-2} + i\Gamma_{n-2,l-2}$ due to the strong interaction between kaon and nucleus.
  • Figure 2: Radial wavefunctions for the kaonic 6h and 4f states in K$^{98}$Mo, shown as the sum of the large and small components as a function of radius in fm. On the scale of this figure, the corresponding wavefunctions for K$^{92}$Mo are indistinguishable, and their differences are therefore not visible.