We perform coupled-cluster calculations for the doubly magic nuclei 4He, 16O, 40Ca and 48Ca, for neutron-rich isotopes of oxygen and fluorine, and employ bare and secondary renormalized nucleon-nucleon interactions. For the nucleon-nucleon interactio
n from chiral effective field theory at order next-to-next-to-next-to leading order, we find that the coupled-cluster approximation including triples corrections binds nuclei within 0.4 MeV per nucleon compared to data. We employ interactions from a resolution-scale dependent similarity renormalization group transformations and assess the validity of power counting estimates in medium-mass nuclei. We find that the missing contributions due to three-nucleon forces are consistent with these estimates. For the unitary correlator model potential, we find a slow convergence with respect to increasing the size of the model space. For the G-matrix approach, we find a weak dependence of ground-state energies on the starting energy combined with a rather slow convergence with respect to increasing model spaces. We also analyze the center-of-mass problem and present a practical and efficient solution.
We compute the binding energy of neutron-rich oxygen isotopes and employ the coupled-cluster method and chiral nucleon-nucleon interactions at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order with two different cutoffs. We obtain rather well-converged results i
n model spaces consisting of up to 21 oscillator shells. For interactions with a momentum cutoff of 500 MeV, we find that 28O is stable with respect to 24O, while calculations with a momentum cutoff of 600 MeV result in a slightly unbound 28O. The theoretical error estimates due to the omission of the three-nucleon forces and the truncation of excitations beyond three-particle-three-hole clusters indicate that the stability of 28O cannot be ruled out from ab-initio calculations, and that three-nucleon forces and continuum effects play the dominant role in deciding this question.
The coupled-cluster wave function factorizes to a very good approximation into a product of an intrinsic wave function and a Gaussian for the center-of-mass coordinate. The width of the Gaussian is in general not identical to the oscillator length of
the underlying single-particle basis. The quality of the separation can be verified by a simple procedure.
We compute the binding energies, radii, and densities for selected medium-mass nuclei within coupled-cluster theory and employ the bare chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction at order N3LO. We find rather well-converged results in model spaces consisting
of 15 oscillator shells, and the doubly magic nuclei 40Ca, 48Ca, and the exotic 48Ni are underbound by about 1 MeV per nucleon within the CCSD approximation. The binding-energy difference between the mirror nuclei 48Ca and 48Ni is close to theoretical mass table evaluations. Our computation of the one-body density matrices and the corresponding natural orbitals and occupation numbers provides a first step to a microscopic foundation of the nuclear shell model.
In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 092501 (2007)], Roth and Navratil present an importance-truncation scheme for the no-core shell model. The authors claim that their truncation scheme leads to converged results for the ground state of 40-Ca. W
e believe that this conclusion cannot be drawn from the results presented in the Letter. Furthermore, the claimed convergence is at variance with expectations of many-body theory. In particular, coupled-cluster calculations indicate that a significant fraction of the correlation energy is missing.
Nuclear theory today aims for a comprehensive theoretical framework that can describe all nuclei. I discuss recent progress in this pursuit and the associated challenges as we move forward.
