We briefly review the theory for electromagnetic reactions in light nuclei based on the coupled-cluster formulation of the Lorentz integral transform method. Results on photodisintegration reactions of 22O and 40Ca are reported on and preliminary calculations on the Coulomb sum rule for 4He are discussed.
Electromagnetic reactions on light nuclei are fundamental to advance our understanding of nuclear structure and dynamics. The perturbative nature of the electromagnetic probes allows to clearly connect measured cross sections with the calculated structure properties of nuclear targets. We present an overview on recent theoretical ab-initio calculations of electron-scattering and photonuclear reactions involving light nuclei. We encompass both the conventional approach and the novel theoretical framework provided by chiral effective field theories. Because both strong and electromagnetic interactions are involved in the processes under study, comparison with available experimental data provides stringent constraints on both many-body nuclear Hamiltonians and electromagnetic currents. We discuss what we have learned from studies on electromagnetic observables of light nuclei, starting from the deuteron and reaching up to nuclear systems with mass number A=16.
The present understanding of nuclear electromagnetic properties including electromagnetic moments, form factors and transitions in nuclei with A $le$ 10 is reviewed. Emphasis is on calculations based on nuclear Hamiltonians that include two- and three-nucleon realistic potentials, along with one- and two-body electromagnetic currents derived from a chiral effective field theory with pions and nucleons.
We review recent results for electromagnetic reactions and related sum rules in light and medium-mass nuclei obtained from coupled-cluster theory. In particular, we highlight our recent computations of the photodisintegration cross section of 40Ca and of the electric dipole polarizability for oxygen and calcium isotopes. We also provide new results for the Coulomb sum rule for 4He and 16O. For 4He we perform a thorough comparison of coupled-cluster theory with exact hyperspherical harmonics.
An {em ab initio} (i.e., from first principles) theoretical framework capable of providing a unified description of the structure and low-energy reaction properties of light nuclei is desirable to further our understanding of the fundamental interactions among nucleons, and provide accurate predictions of crucial reaction rates for nuclear astrophysics, fusion-energy research, and other applications. In this contribution we review {em ab initio} calculations for nucleon and deuterium scattering on light nuclei starting from chiral two- and three-body Hamiltonians, obtained within the framework of the {em ab initio} no-core shell model with continuum. This is a unified approach to nuclear bound and scattering states, in which square-integrable energy eigenstates of the $A$-nucleon system are coupled to $(A-a)+a$ target-plus-projectile wave functions in the spirit of the resonating group method to obtain an efficient description of the many-body nuclear dynamics both at short and medium distances and at long ranges.
An introduction to nucleosynthesis, the creation of the elements in the big bang, in interstellar matter and in stars is given. The two--step process $^4$He(2n,$gamma$)$^6$He and the reverse photodisintegration $^6$He($gamma$,2n)$^4$He involving the halo nucleus $^6$He could be of importance in the $alpha$--process in type--II supernovae. The reaction rates for the above processes are calculated using three--body methods and show an enhancement of more than three orders of magnitude compared to the previous adopted value. Direct--capture calculations give similar values for the above reaction rates. Therefore, this method was also used to calculate the reaction rates of the two--step processes $^6$He(2n,$gamma$)$^8$He and $^9$Li(2n,$gamma$)$^{11}$Li and the reverse photodisintegration of $^8$He and $^{11}$Li that could be also of importance in the $alpha$-process.