Ab Initio Effective Potentials for Scattering of Nucleons from Light Nuclei

An increasing amount of interest has been put into obtaining ab initio descriptions of nuclear reactions. For the first time, a complete ab initio leading-order effective interaction for protons or neutrons on light spin-zero nuclei at intermediate energies can be calculated. This achievement is possible by using the robust ab initio nuclear structure models, the no-core shell model and the symmetry-adapted no-core shell model (SA-NCSM). These techniques provide nonlocal momentum distributions with unique nuclear physics insights, and allow, for the first time, the spin of the struck target nucleon to be taken into account.

The effective potential was calculated using the multiple scattering approach with a complete description of realistic NN amplitudes in both the reaction as well as the structure calculations. In this talk, elastic scattering observables are shown for the Helium isotopes ⁴He, ⁶He, ⁸He, as well as results for ¹²C and ¹⁶O, at 100 to 200 MeV projectile kinetic energy, and found in a good agreement with experiment. I will also present preliminary results for nucleon-nucleus effective interactions at astrophysically relevant energies that utilize the successful Green's function technique and an SA-NCSM description of the target.

Zoom link available upon request at physics@wustl.edu.
Post-docs and students' Q&A with the speaker starts at 2:15 pm.  Contact Garrett King for the Q&A Zoom link.