Study of Nuclear Clustering from an Ab Initio Perspective

We put forward a new ab initio approach that seamlessly bridges the structure, clustering, and reactions aspects of the nuclear quantum many-body problem. The configuration interaction technique combined with the resonating group method based on a harmonic oscillator basis allows us to treat the reaction and multiclustering dynamics in a translationally invariant way and preserve the Pauli principle. Our presentation includes studies of ${}^{8,10}\mathrm{Be}$ and an exploration of $3\alpha$ clustering in ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$.

Figure 1

Spectrum of RGM Hamiltonian with the SRG softened N3LO interaction ($\lambda =1.5{\mathrm{fm}}^{-1}$) and $\hslash \mathrm{\Omega }=25\mathrm{MeV}$ for a $2\alpha$ system. Zero on the energy scale is set by the $\alpha +\alpha$ breakup threshold of the corresponding model. Levels are marked by spin and parity and by an absolute binding energy in units of MeV. The $\alpha$ binding energies for the $\alpha [0]$ and NCSM $(\alpha [4])$ calculations are $-26.08$ and $-28.56\mathrm{MeV}$, respectively. The inset shows the relative wave function of the two $\alpha$ clusters.