Abstract
Background: The calculation of the hyperon binding energy in hypernuclei is crucial to understanding the interaction between hyperons and nucleons.
Purpose: We assess the relative importance of two- and three-body hyperon-nucleon force by studying the effect of the hyperon-nucleon-nucleon interaction in closed shell hypernuclei from A = 5 to 91.
Methods: The binding energy has been calculated using the auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo method for the first time, to study light and heavy hypernuclei within the same model.
Results: Our results show that including a three-body component in the hyperon-nucleon interaction leads to a saturation of the binding energy remarkably close to the experimental data. In contrast, the two-body force alone gives an unphysical limit for the binding energy.
Conclusions: The repulsive contribution of the three-body hyperon-nucleon-nucleon force is essential to reproduce, even qualitatively, the binding energy of hypernuclei in the mass range considered.
- Received 5 February 2013
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.87.041303
©2013 American Physical Society