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26 April 2024 |
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Nuclear binding near a quantum phase transition | | Serdar Elhatisari
; Ning Li
; Alexander Rokash
; Jose Manuel Alarcón
; Dechuan Du
; Nico Klein
; Bing-nan Lu
; Ulf-G. Meißner
; Evgeny Epelbaum
; Hermann Krebs
; Timo A. Lähde
; Dean Lee
; Gautam Rupak
; | | Date: |
15 Feb 2016 | | Abstract: | How do protons and neutrons bind to form nuclei? This is the central question
of ab initio nuclear structure theory. While the answer may seem as simple as
the fact that nuclear forces are attractive, the full story is more complex and
interesting. In this work we present numerical evidence from ab initio lattice
simulations showing that nature is near a quantum phase transition, a
zero-temperature transition driven by quantum fluctuations. Using lattice
effective field theory, we perform Monte Carlo simulations for systems with up
to twenty nucleons. For even and equal numbers of protons and neutrons, we
discover a first-order transition at zero temperature from a Bose-condensed gas
of alpha particles (4He nuclei) to a nuclear liquid. Whether one has an
alpha-particle gas or nuclear liquid is determined by the strength of the
alpha-alpha interactions, and we show that the alpha-alpha interactions depend
on the strength and locality of the nucleon-nucleon interactions. The existence
of the nearby first-order phase transition may explain why ab initio results
for the binding energies of medium mass nuclei can vary significantly with the
details of the nuclear interaction. This insight may be useful in improving
calculations of nuclear structure and important astrophysical reactions
involving alpha capture on nuclei. Our findings could also be used as a tool to
probe the structure of alpha cluster states such as the Hoyle state responsible
for the production of carbon in red giant stars. By adjusting the alpha-alpha
interactions in ab initio calculations, one can move nuclear energy levels
relative to alpha-separation thresholds and observe how the cluster structure
responds. Our results also suggest a connection between nuclear states and the
universal physics of bosons at large scattering length. | | Source: | arXiv, 1602.4539 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
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