Theoretical study of the d(d,p)3H and d(d,n)3He processes at low energies

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed theoretical analysis of the low-energy d(d,p)3H and d(d,n)3He nuclear reactions relevant for energy production and big-bang nucleosynthesis, using advanced ab-initio methods.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive ab-initio hyperspherical harmonic approach with chiral EFT interactions to accurately model these reactions and estimate theoretical uncertainties.

Findings

Calculated astrophysical factors and polarization observables.

Quantified theoretical uncertainties via cutoff variation.

Provided insights for nuclear astrophysics applications.

Abstract

We present a theoretical study of the processes d(d,p)3H and d(d,n)3He at energies of interest for energy production and for big-bang nucleosynthesis. We accurately solve the four body scattering problem using the ab-initio hyperspherical harmonic method, starting from nuclear Hamiltonians which include modern two- and three-nucleon interactions, derived in chiral effective field theory. We report results for the astrophysical factor, the quintet suppression factor, and various single and double polarized observables. An estimate of the "theoretical uncertainty" for all these quantities is provided by varying the cutoff parameter used to regularize the chiral interactions at high momentum.