Skyrmion Dynamics and Nuclei

Rigid-body quantisation of 3-dimensional Skyrmions gives a reasonable model for the spectrum of spin/parities and energies of several nuclei, including Carbon-12. Recent analysis of Oxygen-16 shows that the spectrum is improved by including key parameters allowing deformation of the Skyrmions into dynamic clusters of alpha particles. This goes further than simply including low-lying vibrational states. Jonathan will develop these ideas to give an improved understanding of Carbon-12, and larger nuclei like Neon-20. Jonathan can also use the Skyrme model to study other dynamical processes, including photon emission strengths from excited nuclear states.

This project is in mathematical physics, combining group theory, dynamics and quantisation in the context of 3-d solitons, and is within the EPSRC remit.