Probing nuclear interactions à la Rutherford: insights on 4He from α scattering
Abstract Nuclear interactions play a key role for the stability of atomic nuclei and stellar environments. Successful parametrization and models of these interactions, developed in the last decades, accurately reproduce all the proton and neutron scattering data, besides the properties of few-body nuclear systems. However, recent electron scattering results focusing on the first excited resonant state of 4 He nucleus, reveal a puzzling situation suggesting potential gaps in our understanding of the nuclear phenomenology. Here, we report a study of such 4 He resonance by 4 He + 4 He scattering featuring data of unprecedented sensitivity and state-of-art analyses of the spectral line shape together with a phenomenological reaction modeling that incorporates the same nuclear densities employed in electron-scattering studies. Our analysis of the full set of experimental observables yields a reasonable description within the framework of current nuclear-interaction physics, thereby highlighting the need for further advancing the modeling of few-body open quantum systems.
Authors
- C. Agodi
- M. Cavallaro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1818-6774)
- M. Viviani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4682-4924)
- L. C. Chamon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9624-0882)
- D. Carbone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3601-7632)
- D. Torresi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6043-6178)
- V. Soukeras (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0819-3591)
- Sonia Bacca (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9189-9458)
- C. Frosin
- A. Spatafora (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9240-009X)
- Harry Becker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8860-4911)
- G. A. Brischetto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2609-3527)
- A. Kievsky (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4855-6326)
- O. Sgouros (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3346-3274)
- Giuseppina Orlandini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7652-6477)
- T. Marchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7339-8185)
- D. Dell’Aquila
- S. Calabrese
- A. Hacisalihoglu
- A. Yildirim
- M. Hilcker
- I. Ciraldo
- Y. Kucuk
- I. Lombardo
- M. Vigilante
- M. Fisichella
- C. Ciampi
- M. Cinausero
- M. Cicerchia
- F. Cappuzzello
Institutions
- University of Padua (IT)
- Karadeniz Technical University (TR)
- Universidade de São Paulo (BR)
- University of Trento (IT)
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
- Akdeniz University (TR)
- Technische Universität Darmstadt (DE)
- University of Catania (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics And Applications (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli (IT)
- Helmholtz Institute Mainz (DE)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Catania (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Firenze (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa (IT)
- Turkish Society of Cardiology (TR)
- University of Naples Federico II (IT)
- Ruhr University Bochum (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2026-06-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-74761-y
- Primary Topic
- Nuclear physics research studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- European Commission
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
- Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia: Física Nuclear e Aplicações