Structure of A = 7 - 8 nuclei with two- plus three-nucleon interactions from chiral effective field theory

TL;DR

This study uses ab initio no-core shell model calculations with chiral effective field theory interactions to accurately predict properties of A=7 and 8 nuclei, highlighting the importance of three-nucleon forces.

Contribution

First ab initio NCSM calculations for A=7 and 8 nuclei including chiral three-nucleon interactions, improving agreement with experimental data.

Findings

Including chiral three-nucleon forces improves agreement with experiments.

Predicted new states sensitive to three-nucleon interactions.

Achieved comprehensive description of spectra and electromagnetic properties.

Abstract

We solve the ab initio no-core shell model (NCSM) in the complete Nmax = 8 basis for A = 7 and A = 8 nuclei with two-nucleon and three-nucleon interactions derived within chiral effective field theory (EFT). We find that including the chiral EFT three-nucleon interaction in the Hamiltonian improves overall good agreement with experimental binding energies, excitation spectra, transitions and electromagnetic moments. We predict states that exhibit sensitivity to including the chiral EFT three-nucleon interaction but are not yet known experimentally.