arXiv · 2603.06978
Ab initio study of the halo structure in $^{11}$Be
Abstract
We present an ab initio study of the one-neutron halo nucleus $^{11}$Be using nuclear lattice effective field theory with high-fidelity chiral interactions at N3LO. By employing the wavefunction matching method to mitigate the sign problem and the pinhole algorithm to sample many-body correlations, we successfully reproduce the ground-state parity inversion and the extended matter radius characteristic of the halo structure. We analyze the intrinsic density distributions and geometric shapes of $^{11}$Be in comparison with the core nucleus $^{10}$Be. Our results reveal a prominent two-cluster structure in both nuclei and the occupation of the $\sigma$ molecular orbital by the valence neutron in $^{11}$Be. It enhances the prolate deformation as well as the diffuse neutron tail, distinct from the $\pi$-orbital occupation observed in the $^{10}$Be ground state.
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Shihang Shen, Serdar Elhatisari, Dean Lee, Ulf-G. Meißner, Zhengxue Ren. 2026-03-07. Ab initio study of the halo structure in $^{11}$Be. https://doi.org/10.3390/particles9010025
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