Clustering in nuclear environment

TL;DR

This paper investigates how light nuclear clusters behave in a nuclear medium, emphasizing the effects of Pauli blocking and correlations, and explores their formation in warm dense matter versus nuclear structure.

Contribution

It provides a more consistent theoretical description of cluster properties in nuclear media by including continuum correlations and discusses their formation in different nuclear environments.

Findings

Pauli blocking significantly modifies cluster properties in nuclear matter

Continuum correlations improve the description of cluster dissolution

Insights into cluster formation in warm dense matter and nuclear structure

Abstract

The properties of few-body clusters (mass number $A \le 4$) are modified if they are immersed in a nuclear medium. In particular, Pauli blocking that reflects the antisymmetrization of the many-body wave function is responsible for the medium modification of light clusters and the dissolution with increasing density. A more consistent description is given with takes also the contribution of correlations in the continuum into account. The relation between cluster formation in warm dense matter and in nuclear structure is discussed.