Isospin dependence of nucleon effective masses in neutron-rich matter

Abstract

In this talk, we first briefly review the isospin dependence of the total nucleon effective mass $M^{\ast}_{J}$ inferred from analyzing nucleon-nucleus scattering data within an isospin dependent non-relativistic optical potential model, and the isospin dependence of the nucleon E-mass $M^{\ast,\rm{E}}_{J}$ obtained from applying the Migdal-Luttinger theorem to a phenomenological single-nucleon momentum distribution in nuclei constrained by recent electron-nucleus scattering experiments. Combining information about the isospin dependence of both the nucleon total effective mass and E-mass, we then infer the isospin dependence of nucleon k-mass using the well-known relation $M^{\ast}_{J}=M^{\ast,\rm{E}}_{J}\cdot M^{\ast,\rm{k}}_{J}$. Implications of the results on the nucleon mean free path (MFP) in neutron-rich matter are discussed.