On the universal nature of the nuclear five-body system

Johannes Kirscher

Abstract:

I will present two examples for the state-of-the-art of deriving nuclear physics from its underlying theory, viz., QCD.

First, a universal correlation between the splittings of tri-nucleon binding energies and the two-nucleon scattering lengths is shown to yield a useful prediction for the notoriously hard-to-measure scattering length or two neutrons[1].

Second, an analysis of implications of unphysical meson masses on nuclear systems beyond three constituents is presented. This work integrates results of lattice QCD with low-energy nuclear physics. In particular, we show how a variation of the pion mass affects the peculiar 5-helium system, viz., neutron-α scattering[2].

The conceptual framework of the pion-less effective theory and the numerical resonating group method is outlined, briefly.

[1] Johannes Kirscher and Daniel R. Phillips. Constraining the neutron-neutron scattering length using the effective field theory without explicit pions. Phys.Rev., C84:054004, 2011.

[2] Johannes Kirscher. in preperation. 2014.