Structural phenomena in nuclei, from shell structure and clustering to superfluidity and collective rotations and vibrations, reflect emergent degrees of freedom. Ab initio theory describes nuclei directly from a fully microscopic formulation. We can therefore look to ab initio theory as a means of exploring the emergence of effective degrees of freedom in nuclei. For the illustrative case of emergent rotational bands in the Be isotopes, we establish an understanding of the underlying oscillator space and angular momentum (orbital and spin) structure. We consider no-core configuration interaction (NCCI) calculations for 7,9,11Be with the Daejeon16 internucleon interaction. Although shell model or rotational degrees of freedom are not assumed in the ab initio theory, the NCCI results are suggestive of the emergence of effective shell model degrees of freedom (0 hbar-omega and 2 hbar-omega excitations) and LS-scheme rotational degrees of freedom, consistent with an Elliott-Wilsdon SU(3) description. These results provide some basic insight into the connection between emergent effective collective rotational and shell model degrees of freedom in these light nuclei and the underlying ab initio microscopic description.
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