Eur. Phys. J. A (2005) 23: 11-17
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2004-10074-0

Halo or skin in the excited states of some light mirror nuclei

¹ Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 201800, Shanghai, PRC
² College of Sciences, Zhejiang Forestry University, 311300, Hangzhou, PRC
³ Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, PRC
⁴ Department of Physics, Nanjing University, 210008, Nanjing, PRC
⁵ College of Sciences, Ningbo University, 315211, Ningbo, PRC

^* e-mail: Chenjg@sinr.ac.cn

Received: 6 June 2004
Accepted: 8 September 2004
Published online: 1 December 2004

Abstract

The properties of three pairs of mirror nuclei ¹³N- ¹³C, ¹⁵N- ¹⁵O and ²¹Na- ²¹Ne (these mirror nuclei are all made of a good inert core plus an unpaired valence nucleon) are investigated by using the nonlinear relativistic mean-field (RMF) theory. It is found that the calculated binding energies with two different parameter sets are very close to the experimental ones for both the ground states and the excited states except for the large deformed nuclei. The calculations show that the 2s _1/2 excited states of ¹⁵N and of ²¹Na are both weakly bound with a proton halo and a proton skin (or a pigmy proton skin), respectively. In addition, the 1d _5/2 excited state of ¹³C and the 2s _1/2 excited state of ¹⁵O are also weakly bound with a neutron skin, respectively. The ratio of the valence nucleon radius to matter radius is deduced and it can be regarded as an additional criterion for the existence of exotic structure. The unbound 2s _1/2 and 1d _5/2 excited states of ¹³N are also discussed.