Reconciling Light Nuclei and Nuclear Matter: Relativistic ab initio Calculations

作者：Yilong Yang, P. W. Zhao · 发表于：Chinese Physics Letters · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1088/0256-307x/42/5/051201 · 被引用次数：11 · 研究领域：Nuclear physics research studies、Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions、Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates

Abstract An accurate and simultaneous ab initio prediction for both light nuclei and nuclear matter has been a long-standing challenge in nuclear physics, due to the significant uncertainties associated with the three-nucleon forces. In this Letter, we develop the relativistic quantum Monte Carlo methods for the nuclear ab initio problem, and calculate the ground-state energies of A ≤ 4 nuclei using the two-nucleon Bonn force with an unprecedented high accuracy. The present relativistic results significantly outperform the nonrelativistic results with only two-nucleon forces. We demonstrate that both light nuclei and nuclear matter can be well described simultaneously in the relativistic ab initio calculations, even in the absence of three-nucleon forces, and a correlation between the properties of light A ≤ 4 nuclei and the nuclear saturation is revealed. This provides a quantitative understanding of the connection between the light nuclei and nuclear matter saturation properties.