Magnetic structure of $A \le 10$ nuclei using the Norfolk nuclear models with quantum Monte Carlo methods

TL;DR

This paper uses quantum Monte Carlo methods with chiral effective field theory to accurately compute magnetic properties of light nuclei up to mass number 10, highlighting significant two-body effects and model sensitivities.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive quantum Monte Carlo approach with Norfolk chiral potentials to calculate magnetic observables of light nuclei, emphasizing the importance of two-body currents and cutoff dependencies.

Findings

Two-body contributions to magnetic moments can be as large as 33%.

Calculated magnetic form factors agree well with experimental data up to q≈3 fm$^{-1}$.

The study reveals notable model dependence related to cutoff choices.

Abstract

We present Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of magnetic moments, form factors, and densities of $A\le 10$ nuclei within a chiral effective field theory approach. We use the Norfolk two- and three-body chiral potentials and their consistent electromagnetic one- and two-nucleon current operators. We find that two-body contributions to the magnetic moment can be large (up to $\sim33\%$ in $A=9$ systems). We study the model dependence of these observables and place particular emphasis on investigating their sensitivity to using different cutoffs to regulate the many-nucleon operators. Calculations of elastic magnetic form factors for $A\leq 10$ nuclei show excellent agreement with the data out to momentum transfers $q\approx 3$ fm$^{-1}$.