New approach to nuclear structure cuts amount of computational power required

The idea outlined in this work is to describe the quantum mechanical states of nuclei in terms of relative coordinates, which makes it possible to describe the correlations between nucleons more easily. This approach also helps to separate out the motion of the centre of mass, thus further reducing the complexity of the problem. To date, most nuclear structure calculations have been performed using single particle basis states, as (in keeping with what is referred to as the Pauli exclusion principle) two identical elementary particles cannot occupy the same basis state--an aspect that is tremendously difficult to address in relative coordinates... Now, in the new work, the authors generate sets of basis states for nucleons in complex nuclei, which feature anti-symmetrical relative coordinates.

The authors introduce an algorithm designed to reflect the anti-symmetrized nature of the nucleon states using standard harmonic oscillator states for the light p-shell nuclei. The states are produced along with their corresponding recoupling coefficients, making it possible to include two- and three-nucleon operators. The study focuses on several p-shell nuclei and examines their dependence on the harmonic oscillator frequency. Subsequently, the authors extract the binding and excitation energies of these nuclei.