Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2604.22537

Fusion of light nuclei in a multicluster realization of the three-body problem

Mikhail Egorov

nucl-thquant-phSubmitted Apr 24, 2026• Announced Apr 27, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

This work describes a few-body dynamics method based on the Faddeev integral equations in momentum space for determining the total cross sections of fusion and breakup reactions with two- and three-body final channels in the continuum, employing a cluster representation of the colliding nuclei. Total cross sections were obtained for the reactions $^3\text{He}(T,D)^4\text{He}$, $^3\text{He}(T,np)^4\text{He}$, $^3\text{He}(T,nD)^3\text{He}$, $^3\text{He}(^3\text{He},2p)^4\text{He}$, $^3\text{He}(^3\text{He},pD)^3\text{He}$, $^7\text{Li}(^3\text{He},\phantom{0}^4\text{He})^6\text{Li}$, $^7\text{Li}(^3\text{He},D^4\text{He})^4\text{He}$, and $^7\text{Li}(^3\text{He},T^3\text{He})^4\text{He}$, in which both the projectile and the target nucleus were treated in a cluster representation. The work also implements a two-potential method to determine the Coulomb $t-$matrix and to account for Coulomb effects in short-range dynamics in momentum space. Calculations of the initial-state Coulomb interaction were performed; furthermore, an estimate was obtained for the magnitude of the off-shell effect of the Coulomb $t-$matrix, as well as the magnitude of the atomic electron anti-screening effect on the Coulomb interaction of the colliding nuclei. The calculated contribution of the cluster mechanism to the total cross section of the considered fusion reactions in the kinetic energy range $T\in[1~\text{keV},20~\text{MeV}]$ is in good agreement with known experimental data.

Comments
Submitted to Nucl. Phys. A 32p., 7 eps files

Related papers

Singular Cluster Interactions in Few-Body Problems

Sergio A Albeverio, Pavel Kurasov

The present paper is devoted to the study of the few–body quantum mechanical problem with singular finite rank cluster interactions. The corresponding Hamiltonians play an important role in mathematical physics, since few body Hamiltonians with more regular interactions present considerable difficulties which make impossible a detailed analytic study [ 13 ]. Also a numerical study of such Hamiltonians using Faddeev equations present very hard problems, since the interaction between the particles does not vanish at large distances. On the other hand few-body problems with singular cluster interaction are useful and intensively studied in statistical physics, since the corresponding Hamiltonians can be analyzed in detail even if the number of particles is very large. Models describing one dimensional particles are of particular interest, since the eigenfunctions of the many body Hamiltonians can often be calculated using Bethe Ansatz [ 14 ]. In fact the well-known Yang-Baxter equation was first written in connection with the study of system of several one-dimensional particles with pairwise delta interactions. Similar methods were used in atomic physics to study collisions of several particles [ 12 ] (in three dimensions). Few-body systems in applications are usually investigated by combining the classical description of the dynamics of heavy atoms with the quantum description of the dynamics of electrons and other light particles. The first attempt to construct a three body Hamiltonian describing three quantum particles in R 3 interacting through pairwise delta functional potentials is due to G.V. Skorniakov and K.A.Ter-Martirosian [ 29 ]. R.A.Minlos and L.D.Faddeev proved that the corresponding Hamiltonian is not bounded from below and therefore cannot be used in 278 the originally intended physical applications [ 24 , 25 ]. The operator was defined using the method of self–adjoint perturbations used by F.A.Berezin and L.D.Faddeev for investigating Schödinger operators with delta potential in R 3 [ 10 ]. Almost three decades later semibounded three-body operators in dimension three with generalized two-body interactions were constructed by extending the standard Hilbert space of square integrable functions in R 9 [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 27 , 30 ]. The most interesting model considered used the theory of generalized extensions suggested by B.Pavlov [ 7 , 26 ]. Different aspects of these models were analyzed recently [ 8 , 23 , 20 ]. A general approach to these operators is described in [ 7 , 22 ]. Let us mention that a realization of a many-body lower bounded Hamiltonian with point interactions for particles in R 3 has been obtained in the original Hilbert space by using the theory of Dirichlet forms [ 2 ]. The few-body systems of two dimensional particles with two-body interactions was studied in [ 11 ], where it was proven that the corresponding Hamiltonian is semibounded.

CRC Press eBooks•Apr 24, 2019•0 citations

Ab initio calculations of scattering cross sections of the three-body system ( p¯,e+,e− ) between the e−+H¯(n=2) and e−+H¯(n=3) thresholds

Mateo Valdes, M. Dufour, Rimantas Lazauskas +1 more

The ab initio method based on the Faddeev-Merkuriev equations is used to calculate cross sections involving the $(\overline{p},{e}^{+},{e}^{\ensuremath{-}})$ three-body system, with an emphasis on antihydrogen formation $(\overline{\mathrm{H}})$ via antiproton $(\overline{p})$ scattering on positronium. This system is studied in the energy range between the ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}}+\overline{\mathrm{H}}(n=2)$ and the ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}}+\overline{\mathrm{H}}(n=3)$ thresholds, where precisely calculated cross sections can be useful for future experiments (GBAR, AEGIS, etc.) aiming to produce antihydrogen atoms. A special treatment is developed to take into account the long-range charge-dipole interaction effect on the wave function. Emphasis is placed on the impact of Feshbach resonances and Gailitis-Damburg oscillations appearing in the vicinity of the $\overline{p}+\mathrm{Ps}(n=2)$ threshold.

Physical Review A•Jan 31, 2018•12 citations

Ab initioBogoliubov coupled cluster theory for open-shell nuclei

A. Signoracci, T. Duguet, G. Hagen +1 more

Background: Ab initio many-body methods have been developed over the past 10 yr to address closed-shell nuclei up to mass $A\ensuremath{\approx}130$ on the basis of realistic two- and three-nucleon interactions. A current frontier relates to the extension of those many-body methods to the description of open-shell nuclei. Several routes to address open-shell nuclei are currently under investigation, including ideas that exploit spontaneous symmetry breaking.Purpose: Singly open-shell nuclei can be efficiently described via the sole breaking of U(1) gauge symmetry associated with particle-number conservation as a way to account for their superfluid character. While this route was recently followed within the framework of self-consistent Green's function theory, the goal of the present work is to formulate a similar extension within the framework of coupled cluster theory.Methods: We formulate and apply Bogoliubov coupled cluster (BCC) theory, which consists of representing the exact ground-state wave function of the system as the exponential of a quasiparticle excitation cluster operator acting on a Bogoliubov reference state. Equations for the ground-state energy and the cluster amplitudes are derived at the singles and doubles level (BCCSD) both algebraically and diagrammatically. The formalism includes three-nucleon forces at the normal-ordered two-body level. The first BCC code is implemented in $m$ scheme, which will permit the treatment of doubly open-shell nuclei via the further breaking of SU(2) symmetry associated with angular momentum conservation.Results: Proof-of-principle calculations in an ${N}_{\text{max}}=6$ spherical harmonic oscillator basis for $^{16,18}\mathrm{O}$ and $^{18}\mathrm{Ne}$ in the BCCD approximation are in good agreement with standard coupled cluster results with the same chiral two-nucleon interaction, while $^{20}\mathrm{O}$ and $^{20}\mathrm{Mg}$ display underbinding relative to experiment. The breaking of U(1) symmetry, monitored by computing the variance associated with the particle-number operator, is relatively constant for all five nuclei, in both the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov and BCCD approximations.Conclusions: The newly developed many-body formalism increases the potential span of ab initio calculations based on single-reference coupled cluster techniques tremendously, i.e., potentially to reach several hundred additional midmass nuclei. The new formalism offers a wealth of potential applications and further extensions dedicated to the description of ground and excited states of open-shell nuclei. Short-term goals include the implementation of three-nucleon forces at the normal-ordered two-body level. Midterm extensions include the approximate treatment of triples corrections and the development of the equation-of-motion methodology to treat both excited states and odd nuclei. Long-term extensions include exact restoration of U(1) and SU(2) symmetries.

arXiv:1412.2696•Physical Review C•Jun 29, 2015•96 citations

Integral relations and the adiabatic expansion method for 1+2 reactions above the breakup threshold: Helium trimers with soft-core potentials

Eric Garrido, Carolina Romero-Redondo, Alejandro Kievsky +1 more

The integral relations formalism introduced in [P. Barletta et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 090402 (2009); C. Romero-Redondo et al., Phys. Rev. A 83, 022705 (2011)] and designed to describe $1+N$ reactions is extended here to collision energies above the threshold for the target breakup. These two relations are completely general, and in this work they are used together with the adiabatic expansion method for the description of $1+2$ reactions. The neutron-deuteron breakup, for which benchmark calculations are available, is taken as a test of the method. The $s$-wave collision between the ${}^{4}$He atom and ${}^{4}$He${}_{2}$ dimer above the breakup threshold and the possibility of using soft-core two-body potentials plus a short-range three-body force will be investigated. Comparisons to previous calculations for the three-body recombination and collision dissociation rates will be shown.

arXiv:1211.1802•Physical Review A•Nov 26, 2012•15 citations

New many-body method using cluster expansion diagrams with tensor-optimized antisymmetrized molecular dynamics

Takayuki Myo, Mengjiao Lyu, Hiroshi Toki +5 more

We propose a new many-body method based on the correlation functions, in which the multiple products of the correlation functions are expanded into the many-body diagrams using the cluster expansion method and every diagram is independently optimized in the total-energy variation. We apply this idea to the tensor-optimized antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (TOAMD) using the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction and show the results of the $s$-shell nuclei within the triple products of the correlation functions of tensor and central types. We evaluate the effect of the independent optimization of the many-body diagrams on the solutions. It is found that the triple products provide the sizable effect in the present scheme, which results in the good reproduction of the total energy and the Hamiltonian components of nuclei with respect to the few-body calculations.

arXiv:2201.11877•Physical Review C•Jan 21, 2022•6 citations

Real-time calculations of many-body dynamics in quantum systems

Takashi Nakatsukasa

Real-time computation of time-dependent quantum mechanical problems are presented for nuclear many-body problems. Quantum tunneling in nuclear fusion at low energy is described using a time-dependent wave packet. A real-time method of calculating strength functions using the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is utilized to properly treat the continuum boundary condition. To go beyond the few-body models, we resort to the density-functional theory. The nuclear mean-field models are briefly reviewed to illustrate its foundation and necessity of state dependence in effective interactions. This state dependence is successfully taken into account by the density dependence, leading to the energy density functional. Photoabsorption cross sections in 238 U are calculated with the real-time method for the time-dependent density-functional theory.

arXiv:1209.5384•Journal of Physics Conference Series•Dec 20, 2012•0 citations
This work describes a few-body dynamics method based on the Faddeev integral equations in momentum space for determining the total cross sections of fusion and breakup reactions with two- and three-body final channels in the continuum, employing a cluster representation of the colliding nuclei. Total cross sections were obtained for the reactions 3He(T,D)4He^3\text{He}(T,D)^4\text{He}3He(T,D)4He, 3He(T,np)4He^3\text{He}(T,np)^4\text{He}3He(T,np)4He, 3He(T,nD)3He^3\text{He}(T,nD)^3\text{He}3He(T,nD)3He, 3He(3He,2p)4He^3\text{He}(^3\text{He},2p)^4\text{He}3He(3He,2p)4He, 3He(3He,pD)3He^3\text{He}(^3\text{He},pD)^3\text{He}3He(3He,pD)3He, 7Li(3He,04He)6Li^7\text{Li}(^3\text{He},\phantom{0}^4\text{He})^6\text{Li}7Li(3He,04He)6Li, 7Li(3He,D4He)4He^7\text{Li}(^3\text{He},D^4\text{He})^4\text{He}7Li(3He,D4He)4He, and 7Li(3He,T3He)4He^7\text{Li}(^3\text{He},T^3\text{He})^4\text{He}7Li(3He,T3He)4He, in which both the projectile and the target nucleus were treated in a cluster representation. The work also implements a two-potential method to determine the Coulomb t−t-t−matrix and to account for Coulomb effects in short-range dynamics in momentum space. Calculations of the initial-state Coulomb interaction were performed; furthermore, an estimate was obtained for the magnitude of the off-shell effect of the Coulomb t−t-t−matrix, as well as the magnitude of the atomic electron anti-screening effect on the Coulomb interaction of the colliding nuclei. The calculated contribution of the cluster mechanism to the total cross section of the considered fusion reactions in the kinetic energy range T∈[1 keV,20 MeV]T\in[1~\text{keV},20~\text{MeV}]T∈[1 keV,20 MeV] is in good agreement with known experimental data.
The present paper is devoted to the study of the few–body quantum mechanical problem with singular finite rank cluster interactions. The corresponding Hamiltonians play an important role in mathematical physics, since few body Hamiltonians with more regular interactions present considerable difficulties which make impossible a detailed analytic study [ 13 ]. Also a numerical study of such Hamiltonians using Faddeev equations present very hard problems, since the interaction between the particles does not vanish at large distances. On the other hand few-body problems with singular cluster interaction are useful and intensively studied in statistical physics, since the corresponding Hamiltonians can be analyzed in detail even if the number of particles is very large. Models describing one dimensional particles are of particular interest, since the eigenfunctions of the many body Hamiltonians can often be calculated using Bethe Ansatz [ 14 ]. In fact the well-known Yang-Baxter equation was first written in connection with the study of system of several one-dimensional particles with pairwise delta interactions. Similar methods were used in atomic physics to study collisions of several particles [ 12 ] (in three dimensions). Few-body systems in applications are usually investigated by combining the classical description of the dynamics of heavy atoms with the quantum description of the dynamics of electrons and other light particles. The first attempt to construct a three body Hamiltonian describing three quantum particles in R 3 interacting through pairwise delta functional potentials is due to G.V. Skorniakov and K.A.Ter-Martirosian [ 29 ]. R.A.Minlos and L.D.Faddeev proved that the corresponding Hamiltonian is not bounded from below and therefore cannot be used in 278 the originally intended physical applications [ 24 , 25 ]. The operator was defined using the method of self–adjoint perturbations used by F.A.Berezin and L.D.Faddeev for investigating Schödinger operators with delta potential in R 3 [ 10 ]. Almost three decades later semibounded three-body operators in dimension three with generalized two-body interactions were constructed by extending the standard Hilbert space of square integrable functions in R 9 [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 27 , 30 ]. The most interesting model considered used the theory of generalized extensions suggested by B.Pavlov [ 7 , 26 ]. Different aspects of these models were analyzed recently [ 8 , 23 , 20 ]. A general approach to these operators is described in [ 7 , 22 ]. Let us mention that a realization of a many-body lower bounded Hamiltonian with point interactions for particles in R 3 has been obtained in the original Hilbert space by using the theory of Dirichlet forms [ 2 ]. The few-body systems of two dimensional particles with two-body interactions was studied in [ 11 ], where it was proven that the corresponding Hamiltonian is semibounded.
The ab initio method based on the Faddeev-Merkuriev equations is used to calculate cross sections involving the $(\overline{p},{e}^{+},{e}^{\ensuremath{-}})$ three-body system, with an emphasis on antihydrogen formation (H‾)(\overline{\mathrm{H}})(H) via antiproton (p‾)(\overline{p})(p​) scattering on positronium. This system is studied in the energy range between the ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}}+\overline{\mathrm{H}}(n=2)$ and the ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}}+\overline{\mathrm{H}}(n=3)$ thresholds, where precisely calculated cross sections can be useful for future experiments (GBAR, AEGIS, etc.) aiming to produce antihydrogen atoms. A special treatment is developed to take into account the long-range charge-dipole interaction effect on the wave function. Emphasis is placed on the impact of Feshbach resonances and Gailitis-Damburg oscillations appearing in the vicinity of the p‾+Ps(n=2)\overline{p}+\mathrm{Ps}(n=2)p​+Ps(n=2) threshold.
Background: Ab initio many-body methods have been developed over the past 10 yr to address closed-shell nuclei up to mass $A\ensuremath{\approx}130$ on the basis of realistic two- and three-nucleon interactions. A current frontier relates to the extension of those many-body methods to the description of open-shell nuclei. Several routes to address open-shell nuclei are currently under investigation, including ideas that exploit spontaneous symmetry breaking.Purpose: Singly open-shell nuclei can be efficiently described via the sole breaking of U(1) gauge symmetry associated with particle-number conservation as a way to account for their superfluid character. While this route was recently followed within the framework of self-consistent Green's function theory, the goal of the present work is to formulate a similar extension within the framework of coupled cluster theory.Methods: We formulate and apply Bogoliubov coupled cluster (BCC) theory, which consists of representing the exact ground-state wave function of the system as the exponential of a quasiparticle excitation cluster operator acting on a Bogoliubov reference state. Equations for the ground-state energy and the cluster amplitudes are derived at the singles and doubles level (BCCSD) both algebraically and diagrammatically. The formalism includes three-nucleon forces at the normal-ordered two-body level. The first BCC code is implemented in mmm scheme, which will permit the treatment of doubly open-shell nuclei via the further breaking of SU(2) symmetry associated with angular momentum conservation.Results: Proof-of-principle calculations in an Nmax=6{N}_{\text{max}}=6Nmax​=6 spherical harmonic oscillator basis for 16,18O^{16,18}\mathrm{O}16,18O and 18Ne^{18}\mathrm{Ne}18Ne in the BCCD approximation are in good agreement with standard coupled cluster results with the same chiral two-nucleon interaction, while 20O^{20}\mathrm{O}20O and 20Mg^{20}\mathrm{Mg}20Mg display underbinding relative to experiment. The breaking of U(1) symmetry, monitored by computing the variance associated with the particle-number operator, is relatively constant for all five nuclei, in both the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov and BCCD approximations.Conclusions: The newly developed many-body formalism increases the potential span of ab initio calculations based on single-reference coupled cluster techniques tremendously, i.e., potentially to reach several hundred additional midmass nuclei. The new formalism offers a wealth of potential applications and further extensions dedicated to the description of ground and excited states of open-shell nuclei. Short-term goals include the implementation of three-nucleon forces at the normal-ordered two-body level. Midterm extensions include the approximate treatment of triples corrections and the development of the equation-of-motion methodology to treat both excited states and odd nuclei. Long-term extensions include exact restoration of U(1) and SU(2) symmetries.
The integral relations formalism introduced in [P. Barletta et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 090402 (2009); C. Romero-Redondo et al., Phys. Rev. A 83, 022705 (2011)] and designed to describe 1+N1+N1+N reactions is extended here to collision energies above the threshold for the target breakup. These two relations are completely general, and in this work they are used together with the adiabatic expansion method for the description of 1+21+21+2 reactions. The neutron-deuteron breakup, for which benchmark calculations are available, is taken as a test of the method. The sss-wave collision between the 4{}^{4}4He atom and 4{}^{4}4He2{}_{2}2​ dimer above the breakup threshold and the possibility of using soft-core two-body potentials plus a short-range three-body force will be investigated. Comparisons to previous calculations for the three-body recombination and collision dissociation rates will be shown.
We propose a new many-body method based on the correlation functions, in which the multiple products of the correlation functions are expanded into the many-body diagrams using the cluster expansion method and every diagram is independently optimized in the total-energy variation. We apply this idea to the tensor-optimized antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (TOAMD) using the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction and show the results of the sss-shell nuclei within the triple products of the correlation functions of tensor and central types. We evaluate the effect of the independent optimization of the many-body diagrams on the solutions. It is found that the triple products provide the sizable effect in the present scheme, which results in the good reproduction of the total energy and the Hamiltonian components of nuclei with respect to the few-body calculations.
Real-time computation of time-dependent quantum mechanical problems are presented for nuclear many-body problems. Quantum tunneling in nuclear fusion at low energy is described using a time-dependent wave packet. A real-time method of calculating strength functions using the time-dependent Schrödinger equation is utilized to properly treat the continuum boundary condition. To go beyond the few-body models, we resort to the density-functional theory. The nuclear mean-field models are briefly reviewed to illustrate its foundation and necessity of state dependence in effective interactions. This state dependence is successfully taken into account by the density dependence, leading to the energy density functional. Photoabsorption cross sections in 238 U are calculated with the real-time method for the time-dependent density-functional theory.