Laura Elisa Marcucci

Available Theses

• The nuclear interaction and electro-weak current
  It has been recently derived a local nuclear potential model, within a chiral effective field theory (chiEFT) approach, able to reproduce with great accuracy the A=2 bound and scattering states, and the binding energy of light nuclei. It is interesting to verify the validity of this chiEFT potential by testing it toward the A=3 scattering observables. Also of interest, is to verify its pionless version. Furthermore, given an approach used to derive the nuclear potentials, the same approach can be used to derive the electro-weak nuclear currents, which are necessary inputs of any study of nuclear reactions, as radiative or weak capture, especially those of astrophysical interest. These currents need to be tested comparing theory and experiment for observables as cross sections in electron scattering.
• The few-body system
  We are interested in constructing ab-initio methods to study light nuclear bound and scattering systems, with increasing value of A. Also nuclear systems which have a marked clustering structure are of interest within these methods.
• Nuclear reactions of astrophysical interest
  Several reactions can be studied as:
  • d+⁴He ----> ⁶Li + γ
  • ⁴He+⁴He ----> ⁸Be + γ and ⁸Be + ⁴He ----> ¹²C + γ
  • ν-scattering on light nuclei
  In several cases, no experimental data exist, and therefore the theoretical results will become fundamental inputs for astrophysics.
• Muon capture on light nuclei
  Muon physics and muon capture reactions on light nuclei provides stringent tests for the theoretical framework used in nuclear astrophysics, since the same theoretical inputs are used in both cases, and experimental data for muon capture reactions are available. In this context, the following reactions are of particular interest:
  • μ^-+³He ----> n + d + ν_μ
  • μ^-+³He ----> n + n + p + ν_μ
  • μ^-+⁴He ----> n + ³He + ν_μ
• Neutrinoless double beta decay
  Neutrinoless double beta decay is a fundamental process to investigate whether neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana particles. To give an estimate for the decay rate, it is necessary to know the nuclear matrix element, i.e. the matrix element between the nuclear wave functions and the weak current operator. An exact calculation can be performed on systems involving light nuclei, although these are not the nuclear systems used in current experiments.
• Study of the reaction p+d ----> ³He + e⁺ + e^-
  This reaction can be studied within an ab-initio approach, and it is strongly related to the so-called ⁸Be-anomaly, in the search of physics beyond the standard model. It is the subject of a possible experiment at Fermi Lab, within the REDTOP collaboration.