Emergent symplectic symmetry in atomic nuclei: Ab initio symmetry-adapted no-core shell model

Abstract

Exact symmetry and symmetry-breaking phenomena play a key role in gaining a better understanding of the physics of many-particle systems, from quarks and atomic nuclei, through molecules and galaxies. In nuclei, exact and dominant symmetries such as rotational invariance, parity, and charge independence have been clearly established. Beyond such symmetries, the nature of nuclear dynamics appears to exhibit a high degree of complexity, and only now, we show the fundamental role of an emergent approximate symmetry in nuclei, the symplectic Sp(3,R) symmetry, as clearly unveiled from ab initio studies that start from realistic interactions. In this article, we detail and enhance our recent findings presented in Physical Review Letters 124 (2020) 042501, that establish Sp(3,R) as a remarkably good symmetry of the strong interaction, and point to the predominance of a few equilibrium nuclear shapes (deformed or not) with associated vibrations and rotations that preserve the symplectic Sp(3,R) symmetry. Specifically, we find that the structure of nuclei below the calcium region in their ground state, as well as in their low-lying excited states and giant resonances, respects this symmetry at the 60-80% level.

Part of collection "Role of Symmetries in Nuclear Physics", V.K.B. Kota and A.K. Jain (13 pages, 6 figures, 1 table). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1810.05757

References in corpus (6)

• Accurate nuclear radii and binding energies from a chiral interaction
• Symmetry-guided large-scale shell-model theory
• Evidence for Symplectic Symmetry in Ab Initio No-Core Shell Model Results for Light Nuclei
• Alpha clustering and alpha-capture reaction rate from ab initio symmetry-adapted description of ${}^{20}$Ne
• Electron-scattering form factors for 6Li in the ab initio symmetry-guided framework
• Global Properties of fp-Shell Interactions in Many-nucleon Systems

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• Towards Precise and Accurate Calculations of Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay: Project Scoping Workshop Report
• The proxy-SU(3) symmetry in atomic nuclei
• Multiscale physics of atomic nuclei from first principles
• Ab-initio coupled-cluster calculations of ground and dipole excited states in 8He
• Efficacy of the symmetry-adapted basis for ab initio nucleon-nucleus interactions for light- and intermediate-mass nuclei
• Ab initio computations from ${}^{78}$Ni towards ${}^{70}$Ca along neutron number $N=50$
• Multiple $SU(3)$ algebras in interacting boson model and shell model: Results for $(\beta ,\gamma$) bands and scissors $1^{+}$ band
• Gross features of the spectrum of the 36Ar nucleus
• The Role of Ab Initio Beta-Decay Calculations in Light Nuclei for Probes of Physics Beyond the Standard Model