RIKEN Team Finds Quartet Admixture Increases in Neutron-Rich Te

Researchers at RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science are revealing how correlations between groups of four nucleons, two protons and two neutrons, increase within tellurium isotopes. Taking 100Sn as an inert core, a standard practice in this type of study, the team modeled valence protons and neutrons to investigate changes in these “quartet” correlations using a quartet Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) framework. Their work demonstrates that the valence quartet number increases as the valence neutron number is enlarged. The accompanying quartet-induced energy gain mirrors this trend. The study was authored by Yixin Guo, Hiroyuki Sagawa, and Masaaki Kimura, who detail their findings in a recently published paper. Their results suggest that additional valence neutrons enhance the quartet admixture in the correlated quartet BCS state, while redistributing proton weight from…