Abstract
The energy spectrum of two short-range interacting particles in a harmonic potential trap has previously been related to free-space scattering phase shifts. But the existing formula for systems with a nonzero interaction range is exact only in the limit of an infinitely shallow trap. Here I provide a systematically improved formula—describing the low-energy dynamics—that enables the use of finite traps. This paves the way for extracting nuclear scattering phase shifts from ab initio nuclear many-body structure calculations, a long-sought goal in nuclear physics. The derivation establishes effective field theory as a powerful framework for studying the connection between structure information of a trapped system (with two or more subclusters) and continuum physics in the fields of both nuclear and condensed-matter physics.
- Received 24 June 2019
- Revised 4 September 2019
- Accepted 27 April 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.101.051602
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