Ab initio no-core full configuration calculations of light nuclei

TL;DR

This paper uses ab initio no-core full configuration calculations with a realistic NN interaction to determine ground state energies of light nuclei, revealing underbinding and overbinding patterns and evaluating excited states.

Contribution

It introduces reliable exponential extrapolation methods for calculating ground state energies in no-core full configuration nuclear calculations.

Findings

$^6$He, $^6$Li, $^8$He are underbound by several hundred keV to 1.7 MeV.

$^{12}$C and $^{16}$O are overbound by about 1.7 MeV and 16 MeV.

Excited $0^+$ states have larger uncertainties than ground states.

Abstract

We perform no-core full configuration calculations for a set of light nuclei including $^{16}$O with a realistic NN interaction, JISP16. We obtain ground state energies and their uncertainties through exponential extrapolations that we demonstrate are reliable in $^2$H, $^3$H and $^4$He test cases where fully converged results are obtained directly. We find that $^6$He, $^6$Li and $^8$He are underbound by about 600 keV, 560 keV and 1.7 MeV, respectively. $^{12}$C is overbound by about 1.7 MeV and $^{16}$O is overbound by about 16 MeV. The first excited $0^+$ states in $^{12}$C and $^{16}$O are also evaluated but their uncertainties are significantly larger than the uncertainties for the ground states.