Variational approach with the superposition of the symmetry-restored quasi-particle vacua for nuclear shell-model calculations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a variational method using superpositions of symmetry-restored quasiparticle vacua for nuclear shell-model calculations, enabling accurate energy estimations and decay matrix elements in medium-heavy nuclei.

Contribution

It develops a novel variational scheme with symmetry projection and energy-variance extrapolation for improved shell-model calculations in medium-heavy nuclei.

Findings

Validated for $^{132}$Ba with accurate energy estimates.

Demonstrated feasibility for $^{150}$Nd with converged neutrinoless-double-beta-decay matrix elements.

Achieved good convergence in complex nuclear structure calculations.

Abstract

We propose a variational calculation scheme utilizing the superposition of the angular-momentum, parity, number projected quasiparticle vacua, that is especially suitable for applying to medium-heavy nuclei in shell-model calculations. We derive a formula for the energy variance with quasi-particle vacua and apply the energy-variance extrapolation to the present scheme for further precise estimation of the exact shell-model energy. The validity of the method is presented for the shell-model calculation of $^{132}$Ba in the $50 \leq Z,N \leq 82$ model space. We also discuss the feasibility of this scheme in the case of the $^{150}$Nd in the $50 \leq Z \leq 82$ and $82 \leq Z \leq 126$ model space and demonstrate that its neutrinoless-double-beta-decay matrix element is obtained showing good convergence.