Quantum Monte Carlo study of inhomogeneous neutron matter

Abstract

We present an ab-initio study of neutron drops. We use Quantum Monte Carlo techniques to calculate the energy up to 54 neutrons in different external potentials, and we compare the results with Skyrme forces. We also calculate the rms radii and radial densities, and we find that a re-adjustment of the gradient term in Skyrme is needed in order to reproduce the properties of these systems given by the ab-initio calculation. By using the ab-initio results for neutron drops for close- and open-shell configurations, we suggest how to improve Skyrme forces when dealing with systems with large isospin-asymmetries like neutron-rich nuclei.

8 pages, 6 figures, talk given at Horizons on Innovative Theories, Experiments, and Supercomputing in Nuclear Physics 2012, (HITES2012), New Orleans, Louisiana, June 4-7, 2012; to appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS)

References in corpus (10)

• Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
• Nuclear energy density optimization: Large deformations
• Connecting Neutron Star Observations to Three-Body Forces in Neutron Matter and to the Nuclear Symmetry Energy
• Strongly paired fermions: Cold atoms and neutron matter
• Quantum Monte Carlo calculation of the equation of state of neutron matter
• Cold neutrons trapped in external fields
• Equation of state of superfluid neutron matter and the calculation of ${}^1{S}_0$ pairing gap
• Equation of state of low--density neutron matter and the ${}^1{S}_0$ pairing gap
• Monte Carlo Calculation for the neutron-rich Ca isotopes
• Exact-exchange density functional theory for neutron drops

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Symmetry energy impact in simulations of core-collapse supernovae