Physics of nuclei: Key role of an emergent symmetry

Abstract

Exact symmetry and symmetry-breaking phenomena play a key role in providing a better understanding of the physics of many-particle systems, from quarks and atomic nuclei, to molecules and galaxies. In atomic nuclei, exact and dominant symmetries such as rotational invariance, parity, and charge independence have been clearly established. However, even when these symmetries are taken into account, the structure of nuclei remains illusive and only partially understood, with no additional symmetries immediately evident from the underlying nucleon-nucleon interaction. Here, we show through ab initio large-scale nuclear structure calculations that the special nature of the strong nuclear force determines additional highly regular patterns in nuclei that can be tied to an emergent approximate symmetry. We find that this symmetry is remarkably ubiquitous, regardless of its particular strong interaction heritage, and mathematically tracks with a symplectic group. Specifically, we show for light to intermediate-mass nuclei that the structure of a nucleus, along with its low-energy excitations, respects symplectic symmetry at about 70-80% level, unveiling the predominance of only a few equilibrium shapes, deformed or not, with associated vibrations and rotations. This establishes the symplectic symmetry as a remarkably good symmetry of the strong nuclear force, in the low-energy regime. This may have important implications to studies in astrophysics and neutrino physics that rely on nuclear structure information, especially where experimental measurements are incomplete or not available. A very important practical advantage is that this new symmetry can be utilized to dramatically reduce computational resources required in ab initio large-scale nuclear structure modeling. This, in turn, can be used to pioneer predictions, e.g., for short-lived isotopes along various nucleosynthesis pathways.

6 pages, 4 figures

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• Alpha clustering and alpha-capture reaction rate from ab initio symmetry-adapted description of ${}^{20}$Ne
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• Towards Precise and Accurate Calculations of Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay: Project Scoping Workshop Report
• Emergent symplectic symmetry in atomic nuclei: Ab initio symmetry-adapted no-core shell model
• Ab initio Leading Order Effective Potentials for Elastic Nucleon-Nucleus Scattering
• The proxy-SU(3) symmetry in atomic nuclei
• Emergent Sp(3,R) dynamical symmetry in the nuclear many-body system from an ab initio description
• Emergence of simple patterns in many-body systems: from macroscopic objects to the atomic nucleus
• Multiscale physics of atomic nuclei from first principles
• Benchmark calculations of electromagnetic sum rules with a symmetry-adapted basis and hyperspherical harmonics
• Deformed in-medium similarity renormalization group
• Machine learning approach to pattern recognition in nuclear dynamics from the ab initio symmetry-adapted no-core shell model
• Efficacy of the symmetry-adapted basis for ab initio nucleon-nucleus interactions for light- and intermediate-mass nuclei
• Ab initio translationally invariant nucleon-nucleus optical potentials
• Ground-state properties of light $4n$ self-conjugate nuclei in $ab$ $initio$ no-core Monte Carlo shell model calculations with nonlocal $NN$ interactions
• Neutron-deuteron scattering cross-sections with chiral $NN$ interactions using wave-packet continuum discretization
• Nuclear shape coexistence from the perspective of an algebraic many-nucleon version of the Bohr-Mottelson unified model
• Ab initio computations from ${}^{78}$Ni towards ${}^{70}$Ca along neutron number $N=50$
• Demonstration of the Rodeo Algorithm on a Quantum Computer
• Evidence of bicluster structure in the ground state of ${}^{20}$Ne
• Nucleon-pair coupling scheme in Elliott's SU(3) model
• Ab-initio no-core shell model study of ${}^{18-24}$Ne isotopes
• Ab initio nucleon-nucleus elastic scattering with chiral effective field theory uncertainties
• Rotational bands beyond the Elliott model
• Ab initio nuclear shape coexistence and emergence of island of inversion around $N=20$
• SU(3)-guided Realistic Nucleon-nucleon Interactions for Large-scale Calculations
• Ab initio single-neutron spectroscopic overlaps in lithium isotopes
• Structure of odd-mass Ne, Na, and Mg nuclei
• Perspectives on few-body cluster structures in exotic nuclei
• Nuclear spin features relevant to ab initio nucleon-nucleus elastic scattering
• Chiral uncertainties in ab initio nucleon-nucleus elastic scattering
• New Procedure for Evaluation of U(3) Coupling and Recoupling Coefficients
• Partial dynamical symmetry from energy density functionals
• Puzzling $B(E2;0^{+}\to 2^{+})$ strength in the proton dripline nucleus ${}^{36}$Ca
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• Effective field theories for collective excitations of atomic nuclei
• Semi-microscopic construction of multi-$\alpha$ cluster spaces
• Symplectic Effective Field Theory for Nuclear Structure Studies
• Coupling and Recoupling Coefficients for Wigner's U(4) Supermultiplet Symmetry
• Role of spin-isospin symmetries in nuclear $\beta$-decays
• NuLattice: Ab initio computations of atomic nuclei on lattices
• The Role of Ab Initio Beta-Decay Calculations in Light Nuclei for Probes of Physics Beyond the Standard Model
• Controlled Gate Networks: Theory and Application to Eigenvalue Estimation
• Quantum Phase Transitions within a nuclear cluster model and an effective model of QCD
• Nonlocal structure of the leading order \textit{ab initio} effective potentials for proton elastic scattering from light nuclei
• Efficacious qubit mappings for quantum simulations of the ${}^{12}$C rotational band
• A modern Fortran library for SU(3) coupling and recoupling coefficients