Neural-network excited states of nuclei and hypernuclei
arXiv:2605.30944 · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140911
Abstract
We present the first variational Monte Carlo study of nuclear and hypernuclear excited states within the neural-network quantum states (NQS) framework. We implement both the overlap penalty (OP) and natural excited state (NES) methods to compute low-lying excitation spectra. To address the spin contamination in hypernuclear calculations, we propose a quantum number targeting (QNT) technique for the OP method. Both the OP-QNT and NES methods can reproduce diagonal observables, such as energies and spatial structures, in excellent agreement with rigorous benchmarks. We further provide, to our knowledge, the first \textit{ab initio} calculation of the transition strength for . The calculated transition strength is consistent with the weak-coupling limit, exhibiting a 1.3\% suppression. This work demonstrates that NQS can be elevated from ground-state solvers to practical tools for nuclear and hypernuclear spectroscopy.