Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo study of the Hyperon-Nucleon interaction in $\Lambda$-hypernuclei

TL;DR

This study uses Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo to analyze hyperon-nucleon interactions in hypernuclei, showing that including three-body forces improves agreement with experimental separation energies.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed Monte Carlo approach to quantify the effects of two- and three-body forces in hypernuclei, advancing understanding of hyperon interactions.

Findings

Bare hyperon-nucleon force overestimates separation energies

Including three-body forces reduces separation energies

Results align qualitatively with experimental data

Abstract

We investigate the role of two- and three-body $\Lambda$-nucleon forces by computing the ground state of a few $\Lambda$-hypernuclei with the Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo algorithm. Calculations have been performed for masses up to A=41, including some open-shell hypernuclei. The results show that the use of a bare hyperon-nucleon force fitted on the available scattering data yields a consistent overestimate of the $\Lambda$-separation energy $B_\Lambda$. The inclusion of a hyperon-nucleon-nucleon interaction systematically reduces $B_\Lambda$, leading to a qualitatively good agreement with experimental data over the range of masses investigated.