The role of three-nucleon forces and many-body processes in nuclear pairing

Abstract

We present microscopic valence-shell calculations of pairing gaps in the calcium isotopes, focusing on the role of three-nucleon (3N) forces and many-body processes. In most cases, we find a reduction in pairing strength when the leading chiral 3N forces are included, compared to results with low-momentum two-nucleon (NN) interactions only. This is in agreement with a recent energy density functional study. At the NN level, calculations that include particle–particle and hole–hole ladder contributions lead to smaller pairing gaps compared with experiment. When particle–hole contributions as well as the normal-ordered one- and two-body parts of 3N forces are consistently included to third order, we find reasonable agreement with experimental three-point mass differences. This highlights the important role of 3N forces and many-body processes for pairing in nuclei. Finally, we relate pairing gaps to the evolution of nuclear structure in neutron-rich calcium isotopes and study the predictions for the 2+ excitation energies, in particular for 54Ca.