Alpha-Particle Clustering from Expanding Self-Conjugate Nuclei within the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov Approach

M. Girod (1) , P. Schuck (2, 3)

1 DAM/DIF - DAM Île-de-France
2 IPNO - Institut de Physique Nucléaire d'Orsay
3 LPM2C - Laboratoire de physique et modélisation des milieux condensés

The nuclear equation of state is explored with the constrained HFB approach for self conjugate nuclei. It is found that beyond a certain low, more or less universal density, those nuclei spontaneously cluster into A/4 $\alpha$ particles with $A$ the nucleon number. The energy at the threshold density increases linearly with the number of $\alpha$ particles as does the experimental threshold energy. Taking off the spurious c.o.m. energy of each $\alpha$ particle almost gives agreement between theory and experiment. The implications of these results with respect to $\alpha$ clustering and the nuclear EOS at low density are discussed.

Domaines: Physique Nucléaire Théorique [nucl-th]

M. Girod, P. Schuck. Alpha-Particle Clustering from Expanding Self-Conjugate Nuclei within the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov Approach. Physical Review Letters, 2013, 111, pp.132503. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.132503⟩. ⟨hal-00841577⟩