Light Nuclei and Hypernuclei from Quantum Chromodynamics in the Limit of SU(3) Flavor Symmetry

TL;DR

This study uses lattice QCD to calculate the binding energies of light nuclei and hypernuclei under SU(3) flavor symmetry, providing insights into their structure directly from fundamental theory.

Contribution

It presents the first lattice QCD calculations of light nuclei and hypernuclei binding energies in the SU(3) flavor symmetric limit at physical strange quark mass.

Findings

Binding energies of nuclei and hypernuclei are computed from first principles.

Results include the deuteron, di-neutron, H-dibaryon, and Lambda hypernuclei.

Calculations are performed across multiple lattice volumes to control finite-volume effects.

Abstract

The binding energies of a range of nuclei and hypernuclei with atomic number A <= 4 and strangeness |s| <= 2, including the deuteron, di-neutron, H-dibaryon, 3He, Lambda 3He, Lambda 4He, and Lambda Lambda 4He, are calculated in the limit of flavor-SU(3) symmetry at the physical strange quark mass with quantum chromodynamics (without electromagnetic interactions). The nuclear states are extracted from Lattice QCD calculations performed with n_f=3 dynamical light quarks using an isotropic clover discretization of the quark-action in three lattice volumes of spatial extent L ~ 3.4 fm, 4.5 fm and 6.7 fm, and with a single lattice spacing b ~ 0.145 fm.