Nuclear properties with semilocal momentum-space regularized chiral interactions beyond N2LO

Abstract

We present a comprehensive investigation of few-nucleon systems as well as light and medium-mass nuclei up to $A=48$ using the current Low Energy Nuclear Physics International Collaboration two-nucleon interactions in combination with the third-order (${\mathrm{N}}^{2}\mathrm{LO}$) three-nucleon forces. To address the systematic overbinding of nuclei starting from $A\ensuremath{\approx}10$ found in our earlier study utilizing the ${\mathrm{N}}^{2}\mathrm{LO}$ two- and three-nucleon forces, we take into account higher-order corrections to the two-nucleon potentials up through fifth order in chiral effective field theory. The resulting Hamiltonian can be completely determined using the $A=3$ binding energies and selected nucleon-deuteron cross sections as input. It is then shown to predict other nucleon-deuteron scattering observables and spectra of light $p$-shell nuclei, for which a detailed correlated truncation error analysis is performed, in agreement with experimental data. Moreover, the predicted ground state energies of nuclei in the oxygen isotopic chain from $^{14}\mathrm{O}$ to $^{26}\mathrm{O}$ as well as $^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$ and $^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$ show a remarkably good agreement with experimental values, given that the Hamiltonian is fixed completely from the $A\ensuremath{\le}3$ data, once the fourth-order (${\mathrm{N}}^{3}\mathrm{LO}$) corrections to the two-nucleon interactions are taken into account. On the other hand, the charge radii are found to be underpredicted by $\ensuremath{\approx}10%$ for the oxygen isotopes and by almost $20%$ for $^{40}\mathrm{Ca}$ and $^{48}\mathrm{Ca}$.