From the lightest nuclei to the equation of state of asymmetric nuclear matter with realistic nuclear interactions

TL;DR

This paper uses advanced quantum Monte Carlo methods with realistic nuclear forces to accurately calculate properties of light to medium nuclei and the equation of state for asymmetric nuclear matter, revealing the quadratic energy dependence on symmetry energy.

Contribution

It introduces an improved AFDMC approach combined with a new Argonne force consistent with chiral interactions for precise nuclear and matter calculations.

Findings

Successful calculation of energies for light to medium nuclei.

Demonstration of quadratic dependence of energy on symmetry energy.

Validation of AFDMC for asymmetric nuclear matter.

Abstract

We present microscopic calculations of light and medium mass nuclei and the equation of state of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter using different nucleon-nucleon forces, including a new Argonne version that has the same spin/isospin structure as local chiral forces at next-to-next-to-leading order (N2LO). The calculations are performed using Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo (AFDMC) combined with an improved variational wave function. We show that the AFDMC method can now be used to successfully calculate the energies of very light to medium mass nuclei as well as the energy of isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter, demonstrating microscopically the quadratic dependence of the energy on the symmetry energy.