Range corrections in proton halo nuclei

Journal article, 2016

We analyze the effects of finite-range corrections in halo effective field theory for S-wave proton halo nuclei. We calculate the charge radius to next-to-leading order and the astrophysical S-factor for low-energy proton capture to fifth order in the low energy expansion. As an application, we confront our results with experimental data for the S-factor for proton capture on Oxygen-16 into the excited 1/2(+) state of Fluorine-17. Our low-enegrgy theory is characterized by a systematic low-energy expansion, which can be used to quantify an energy-dependent model error to be utilized in data fitting. Finally, we show that the existence of proton halos is suppressed by the need for two fine tunings in the underlying theory.