Ground-state properties of 4He and 16O extrapolated from lattice QCD with pionless EFT

Journal Article · Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Physics Letters B

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2017.07.048· OSTI ID:1372952

Contessi, L.; Lovato, A.; Pederiva, F. ; Roggero, A.; Kirscher, J.; van Kolck, U.

Here, we extend the prediction range of Pionless Effective Field Theory with an analysis of the ground state of ¹⁶O in leading order. To renormalize the theory, we use as input both experimental data and lattice QCD predictions of nuclear observables, which probe the sensitivity of nuclei to increased quark masses. The nuclear many-body Schrödinger equation is solved with the Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo method. For the first time in a nuclear quantum Monte Carlo calculation, a linear optimization procedure, which allows us to devise an accurate trial wave function with a large number of variational parameters, is adopted. The method yields a binding energy of ⁴He which is in good agreement with experiment at physical pion mass and with lattice calculations at larger pion masses. At leading order we do not find any evidence of a ¹⁶O state which is stable against breakup into four ⁴He, although higher-order terms could bind ¹⁶O.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357; FG02-04ER41338; 654002
• OSTI ID: 1372952
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1416009
• Journal Information: Physics Letters B, Journal Name: Physics Letters B Vol. 772 Journal Issue: C; ISSN 0370-2693
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: Netherlands
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS