Reconciling light nuclei and nuclear matter: relativistic $ab\ initio$ calculations

TL;DR

This paper introduces relativistic quantum Monte Carlo methods to accurately predict properties of light nuclei and nuclear matter simultaneously, revealing a correlation between them without needing three-nucleon forces.

Contribution

The paper develops relativistic ab initio calculations for light nuclei, achieving unprecedented accuracy and connecting nuclear properties without three-nucleon forces.

Findings

Relativistic calculations outperform nonrelativistic results for A=3,4 nuclei.

A correlation between light nuclei properties and nuclear saturation is established.

Both light nuclei and nuclear matter are well described without three-nucleon forces.

Abstract

It has been a long-standing challenge to accurately predict the properties of light nuclei and nuclear matter simultaneously in nuclear $ab\ initio$ calculations. In this Letter, we develop the relativistic quantum Monte Carlo methods for the nuclear $ab\ initio$ problem, and calculate the ground-state energies of $A\leq4$ nuclei using the two-nucleon Bonn force with an unprecedented high accuracy. For $A=3,4$ nuclei, the present relativistic results significantly outperforms the nonrelativistic results with only two-nucleon forces. Combining the present results for light nuclei and the previous results for nuclear matter with the same Bonn force, a correlation between the properties of light $A\leq4$ nuclei and the nuclear saturation is revealed, and both systems are well described simultaneously, even without introducing three-nucleon forces. This provides a quantitative understanding of the connection between the light nuclei and nuclear matter saturation properties, which has been an outstanding problem in nuclear $ab\ initio$ calculations for decades.