A discussion of the seniority quantum number in many-body systems is presented. The analysis is carried out for bosons and fermions simultaneously but is restricted to identical particles occupying a single shell. The emphasis of the paper is on the possibility of partial conservation of seniority which turns out to be a peculiar property of spin-9/2 fermions but prevalent in systems of interacting bosons of any spin. Partial conservation of seniority is at the basis of the existence of seniority isomers, frequently observed in semi-magic nuclei, and also gives rise to peculiar selection rules in one-nucleon transfer reactions. Key words: quantum mechanics, many-body systems, seniority, nuclear shell model, interacting bosons
The seniority scheme introduced by Racah is generalized in the case of degenerate levels. Many formulae for the pure configuration j n are modified in order to calculate matrix elements in this generalized seniority scheme. It is especially the most interesting result that the diagonal matrix element of two-body operators between the states with the same seniority v can be expressed in terms of the matrix elements in the v -particle system. This result, of course, holds in the case of the pure configuration.
Background: In quantum mechanics, entanglement is the most striking phenomenon which has no counterpart in classical systems. Although different approaches have already been developed to study correlations in the case of indistinguishable particles, the exploration of the so-called mode entanglement is still in its initial stage in nuclear physics.Purpose: We aim to study mode entanglement in the seniority model, derive analytic formulas for the one-body reduced density matrix of states with seniority $\ensuremath{\nu}=0,\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}1,\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}2$, and 3, and also determine the particle number dependence of the one-body reduced density matrix for arbitrary seniority. In addition, we compare the predictions of the seniority model with the results of the shell model to gain insight into the structure and correlations of the ground and lowest yrast states.Methods: In the seniority model the analytic results are calculated using the quasispin formalism. The numerical shell model calculations are carried out in the standard shell model framework using an inert core. The applied realistic effective interactions are derived earlier using the
G-matrix formalism. The density matrix renormalization group method is also applied in order to directly calculate the mode entropies.Results: In the seniority model simple analytical expressions are given for the mode entropies. The peculiar behavior of the half-filled shells and the seniority-zero states is revealed. Numerical results are presented for the lightest stable calcium isotopes and for
94Ru nucleus.Conclusions: For
94Ru, the seniority model accounts for the
0g9/2 mode entropies, but seniority mixing is important for certain yrast states. Interaction induced quantum fluctuations decrease the occupation of the
0f5/2,
1p3/2, and
1p1/2 shells, and result in non-negligible mode entropies on these shells, too, clearly outside the scope of the simple
(0g9/2)4 seniority model. The
0f7/2 shell based seniority model is more accurate for the
Ca isotopes, but seniority mixing is substantial for some
44Ca yrast states, too. Mode and one-body entanglement entropies are useful tools to investigate the structure of quantum correlations in nuclei.
We suggest that the extension of the Racah seniority description of strongly interacting fermions in the nuclear shell model is directly generalizable to describe pairing of atoms in cold Fermi systems. We illustrate this by the fermionic pairing in the much studied cold two-component gas of Li atoms. Our pairing interaction is two orders of magnitude stronger than that used in the usual BCS approach. We also explain why the Racah scheme is less applicable to nuclei, and discuss the similarities of the strongly-coupled matter in cold fermion systems and the new form of matter found in RHIC close to T_c.
Two advances are reviewed in the application of pairing-force theory in the nuclear shell model. The first exploits a discovery that a wide range of two-nucleon interactions conserve seniority as a good quantum number. Asa consequence, the eigenstates of a hamiltonian with such an interaction belong to irreducible representations of a compact unitary-symplectic group. This makes it possible to extend the simply-solvable models with J = 0 pairing forces to a much richer set of models and still obtain states uniquely classified by their seniority and angular momentum quantum numbers. Moreover, many of the low-lying energy levels of such models can be obtained algebraically; in technical terms, the models are in some cases completely solvable and in other cases partially solvable by algebraic methods. The second advance exploits the discovery that, in a coherent state representation, states of good nucleon number can be projected analytically from BCS vacuum and excited quasiparticle states. This makes it possible to perform calculations in a number-projected BCS basis without losing much of the advantage of working in a quasiparticle scheme.
The use of quantality is discussed in the case of nuclei and other many-body systems such as atomic electrons. This dimensionless quantity is known to indicate when a many-body system behaves like a crystal or a quantum liquid. Its role is further analyzed by showing its relation to the scattering length. The emergence of a fundamental length scale, the limit radius, is also shown. It corresponds to the hard-core of the nucleon-nucleon interaction in the case of nucleons, and to a value close to the Bohr radius in the case of atomic electrons. The occurrence of a cluster phase in nuclei is analyzed using the quantality through its relation to the localization parameter, allowing for the identification of both the number of nucleons and the density as control parameters for the occurrence of this phase. The relation of the quantality to the magnitude of the interaction also exhibits a third dimensionless parameter, monitoring the magnitude of the spin-orbit effect in finite systems, through the realization of the pseudospin symmetry. The impact of quantality on the spin-orbit effect is compared in various many-body systems. The role of quantality in the relative effect of the binding energy and the shell one is also analyzed in nuclei. Finally, additional dimensionless quantities are proposed from the generalization of the quantality. Nuclei are found to be exceptional systems because all their dimensionless quantities are close to the order of unity, at variance with other many-body systems.