Symmetry-Adapted Ab Initio Shell Model for Nuclear Structure Calculations

Abstract

An innovative concept, the symmetry-adapted ab initio shell model, that capitalizes on partial as well as exact symmetries that underpin the structure of nuclei, is discussed. This framework is expected to inform the leading features of nuclear structure and reaction data for light and medium mass nuclei, which are currently inaccessible by theory and experiment and for which predictions of modern phenomenological models often diverge. We use powerful computational and group-theoretical algorithms to perform ab initio CI (configuration-interaction) calculations in a model space spanned by SU(3) symmetry-adapted many-body configurations with the JISP16 nucleon-nucleon interaction. We demonstrate that the results for the ground states of light nuclei up through A = 16 exhibit a strong dominance of low-spin and high-deformation configurations together with an evident symplectic structure. This, in turn, points to the importance of using a symmetry-adapted framework, one based on an LS coupling scheme with the associated spatial configurations organized according to deformation.