Role of triaxiality in deformed halo nuclei

It is known that nuclear deformation plays an important role in inducing the halo structure in neutron-rich nuclei by mixing several angular momentum components. While previous theoretical studies on this problem in the literature assume axially symmetric deformation, we here consider nonaxially symmetric deformations. With triaxial deformation, the Omega quantum number is admixed in a single-particle wave function, where Omega is the projection of the single-particle angular momentum on the symmetric axis, and the halo structure may arise even when it is absent with the axially symmetric deformation. In this way, the area of halo nuclei may be extended when triaxial deformation is considered. We demonstrate this idea using a deformed Woods-Saxon potential for nuclei with neutron number N = 13 and 43.

Automated summary

Nuclear deformation is important in inducing the halo structure in neutron-rich nuclei, with axial and non-axial deformations affecting the mixing of single-particle wave functions. Triaxial deformation introduces the Omega quantum number, potentially leading to changes in the halo structure even when absent in axially symmetric deformation.