Properties of nuclei up to $A=16$ using local chiral interactions

TL;DR

This paper presents precise quantum Monte Carlo calculations of nuclei up to mass number 16 using local chiral interactions, analyzing uncertainties and demonstrating excellent agreement with experimental properties.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive quantum Monte Carlo study of nuclei up to $A=16$ with local chiral interactions, including uncertainty analysis.

Findings

Chiral interactions accurately reproduce binding energies and charge radii.

Uncertainties increase with larger coordinate-space cutoffs, especially in $^{16}$O.

Good agreement with experimental data across light and medium nuclei.

Abstract

We report accurate quantum Monte Carlo calculations of nuclei up to $A=16$ based on local chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions up to next-to-next-to-leading order. We examine the theoretical uncertainties associated with the chiral expansion and the cutoff in the theory, as well as the associated operator choices in the three-nucleon interactions. While in light nuclei the cutoff variation and systematic uncertainties are rather small, in $^{16}$O these can be significant for large coordinate-space cutoffs. Overall, we show that chiral interactions constructed to reproduce properties of very light systems and nucleon-nucleon scattering give an excellent description of binding energies, charge radii, and form factors for all these nuclei, including open-shell systems in $A=6$ and 12.