Repulsive Four-Body Interactions of $\alpha$ Particles and Quasi-Stable Nuclear $\alpha$-Particle Condensates in Heavy Self-Conjugate Nuclei

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tiny repulsive four-body interactions among alpha particles influence the stability and properties of alpha-particle condensates in heavy nuclei, revealing a decrease in the critical number of alpha particles needed for stability.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-analytic approach to quantify the impact of four-body interactions on alpha condensates and identifies how these interactions reduce the critical particle number for stability.

Findings

Repulsive four-body interactions decrease the critical alpha particle number by 1-4.

Four-body interactions affect energies and radii of alpha condensates.

Study provides benchmarks for experimental exploration of alpha condensates.

Abstract

We study the effects of repulsive four-body interactions of $\alpha$ particles on nuclear $\alpha$-particle condensates in heavy self-conjugate nuclei using a semi-analytic approach, and find that the repulsive four-body interactions could decrease the critical number of $\alpha$ particles, beyond which quasi-stable $\alpha$-particle condensate states can no longer exist, even if these four-body interactions make only tiny contributions to the total energy of the Hoyle-like state of $^{16}$O. Explicitly, we study eight benchmark parameter sets, and find that the critical number $N_\text{cr}$ decreases by $|\Delta N_\text{cr}|\sim1-4$ from $N_\text{cr}\sim11$ with vanishing four-body interactions. We also discuss the effects of four-body interactions on energies and radii of $\alpha$-particle condensates. Our study can be useful for future experiments to study $\alpha$-particle condensates in heavy self-conjugate nuclei. Also, the experimental determination of $N_\text{cr}$ will eventually help establish a better understanding on the $\alpha$-particle interactions, especially the four-body interactions.