Physics Letters B 779 (2018) 336–341
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
Light neutron-rich hypernuclei from the importance-truncated no-core
shell model
Roland Wirth
∗
, Robert Roth
Institut für Kernphysik – Theoriezentrum, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Schlossgartenstr. 2, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received
13 October 2017
Received
in revised form 29 January 2018
Accepted
12 February 2018
Available
online 13 February 2018
Editor:
J.-P. Blaizot
Keywords:
Hypernuclei
Ab-initio
methods
Neutron-rich
nuclei
Neutron
separation energies
Neutron
drip line
We explore the systematics of ground-state and excitation energies in singly-strange hypernuclei
throughout the helium and lithium isotopic chains — from
5
He to
11
He and from
7
Li to
12
Li — in the
ab initio no-core shell model with importance truncation. All calculations are based on two- and three-
baryon
interaction from chiral effective field theory and we employ a similarity renormalization group
transformation consistently up to the three-baryon level to improve the model-space convergence. While
the absolute energies of hypernuclear states show a systematic variation with the regulator cutoff of
the hyperon–nucleon interaction, the resulting neutron separation energies are very stable and in good
agreement with available data for both nucleonic parents and their daughter hypernuclei. We provide
predictions for the neutron separation energies and the spectra of neutron-rich hypernuclei that have not
yet been observed experimentally. Furthermore, we find that the neutron drip lines in the helium and
lithium isotopic chains are not changed by the addition of a hyperon.
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
The exploration of the extremes of nuclear existence is one
of the main drivers in low-energy nuclear physics today. Current
and future experimental facilities, like FAIR, FRIB, JLab, J-Parc, or
RIBF, strive for more and more neutron-rich nuclei, approaching
the neutron drip line. The structure of nuclei with large neutron
excess provides valuable information about less-constrained parts
of the nuclear interaction and is a challenge for nuclear theory.
Light neutron-rich nuclei are an ideal testing ground for exploring
nuclear interactions at large neutron-to-proton ratios. At the same
time, heavier neutron-rich nuclei play a crucial role in nucleosyn-
thesis
processes in astrophysical environments, i.e., the r process
responsible for the production of the majority of heavy elements
in the universe [1]. Likewise, the strong interaction at the neutron-
rich
extremes governs the structure and stability of neutron stars
[2,3].
Strangeness
in nuclei has also been a focus of experimental and
theoretical activity [4]. A recent highlight are the mirror hypernu-
clei
4
H and
4
He, which exhibit a marked charge-symmetry break-
ing
effect [5–8]. Beyond these very light systems, which can be
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail
addresses: roland .wirth @physik.tu -darmstadt .de (R. Wirth),
robert .roth @physik.tu -darmstadt .de (R. Roth).
described theoretically with established ab initio few-body meth-
ods
[9,10], a multitude of phenomenological models like mean-
field
[11,12], Skyrme [13–15], cluster [16,17]or microscopic shell
models [18,19]have been used to describe heavier hypernuclei.
Also, quantum Monte Carlo methods have been developed [20,21],
which can calculate ground-state energies throughout a large part
of the hypernuclear chart but are limited to simplified interactions.
Recently, we presented a powerful ab initio method suitable for
p-shell hypernuclei: the importance-truncated no-core shell model
(IT-NCSM) for hypernuclei [22]. With the IT-NCSM we can com-
pute
not only ground, but also excited states including all relevant
electromagnetic observables [23,24]. In order to accelerate the con-
vergence
of the IT-NCSM we employ similarity renormalization
group (SRG) transformations and we recently extended the SRG
to hyperon–nucleon (YN) and induced hyperon–nucleon–nucleon
(YNN) interactions [25].
In
this work, we connect the worlds of neutron-rich nuclei and
strangeness. We explore light neutron-rich hypernuclei and study
the impact of the additional hyperon on their structure. In partic-
ular,
we consider the helium and lithium isotopic chains and their
hypernuclear analogs. Some of these hypernuclei have been stud-
ied
in experiment [26–29], others can in principle be produced
but have not been observed [30]. Some are not accessible in ex-
periments
that produce hypernuclei off stable targets. However,
the possibility of using heavy ion collisions to produce hypernuclei
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2018.02.021
0370-2693/
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by
SCOAP
3
.