Recent progress in Hamiltonian light-front QCD

Hamiltonian light-front quantum field theory constitutes a framework for the non-perturbative solution of invariant masses and correlated parton amplitudes of self-bound systems. By choosing light-front gauge and adopting a basis function representation, we obtain a large, sparse, Hamiltonian matrix for mass eigenstates of gauge theories that is solvable by adapting the ab initio no-core methods of nuclear many-body theory. Full covariance is recovered in the continuum limit, the infinite matrix limit. We outline our approach and discuss the computational challenges.Comment: Invited paper at Light Cone 2008, Mulhouse, Franc

Electron in a transverse harmonic cavity

We employ Hamiltonian light-front quantum field theory in a basis function approach to solve the non-perturbative problem of an electron in a strong scalar transverse confining potential. We evaluate both the invariant mass spectra and the anomalous magnetic moment of the lowest state for this two-scale system. The weak external field limit of the anomalous magnetic moment agrees with the result of QED perturbation theory within the anticipated accuracy.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, published versio

Origin of the anomalous long lifetime of 14C

We report the microscopic origins of the anomalously suppressed beta decay of 14C to 14N using the ab initio no-core shell model (NCSM) with the Hamiltonian from chiral effective field theory (EFT) including three-nucleon force (3NF) terms. The 3NF induces unexpectedly large cancellations within the p-shell between contributions to beta decay, which reduce the traditionally large contributions from the NN interactions by an order of magnitude, leading to the long lifetime of 14C.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures and 2 table

Ab Initio study of neutron drops with chiral Hamiltonians

We report ab initio calculations for neutron drops in a 10 MeV external harmonic-oscillator trap using chiral nucleon-nucleon plus three-nucleon interactions. We present total binding energies, internal energies, radii and odd-even energy differences for neutron numbers N = 2 - 18 using the no-core shell model with and without importance truncation. Furthermore, we present total binding energies for N = 8, 16, 20, 28, 40, 50 obtained in a coupled-cluster approach. Comparisons with Green's Function Monte Carlo results, where available, using Argonne v8' with three-nucleon interactions reveal important dependences on the chosen Hamiltonian.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Auxiliary potential in no-core shell-model calculations

The Lee-Suzuki iteration method is used to include the folded diagrams in the calculation of the two-body effective interaction $v^{(2)}_{\rm eff}$ between two nucleons in a no-core model space. This effective interaction still depends upon the choice of single-particle basis utilized in the shell-model calculation. Using a harmonic-oscillator single-particle basis and the Reid-soft-core {\it NN} potential, we find that $v^{(2)}_{\rm eff}$ overbinds ^4\mbox{He} in 0, 2, and $4\hbar\Omega$ model spaces. As the size of the model space increases, the amount of overbinding decreases significantly. This problem of overbinding in small model spaces is due to neglecting effective three- and four-body forces. Contributions of effective many-body forces are suppressed by using the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock single-particle Hamiltonian.Comment: 14 text pages and 4 figures (in postscript, available upon request). AZ-PH-TH/94-2

Nucleon-deuteron scattering with the JISP16 potential

The nucleon-nucleon J-matrix Inverse Scattering Potential JISP16 is applied to elastic nucleon-deuteron (Nd) scattering and the deuteron breakup process at the lab. nucleon energies up to 135 MeV. The formalism of the Faddeev equations is used to obtain 3N scattering states. We compare predictions based on the JISP16 force with data and with results based on various NN interactions: the CD Bonn, the AV18, the chiral force with the semi-local regularization at the 5th order of the chiral expansion and with low-momentum interactions obtained from the CD Bonn force as well as with the predictions from the combination of the AV18 NN interaction and the Urbana IX 3N force. JISP16 provides a satisfactory description of some observables at low energies but strong deviations from data as well as from standard and chiral potential predictions with increasing energy. However, there are also polarization observables at low energies for which the JISP16 predictions differ from those based on the other forces by a factor of two. The reason for such a behavior can be traced back to the P-wave components of the JISP16 force. At higher energies the deviations can be enhanced by an interference with higher partial waves and by the properties of the JISP16 deuteron wave function. In addition, we compare the energy and angular dependence of predictions based on the JISP16 force with the results of the low-momentum forces obtained with different values of the momentum cutoff parameter. We found that such low-momentum forces can be employed to interpret the Nd elastic scattering data only below some specific energy which depends on the cutoff parameter. Since JISP16 is defined in a finite oscillator basis, it has properties similar to low momentum interactions and its application to the description of Nd scattering data is limited to a low momentum transfer region.Comment: 26 pages, 12 eps figures; Version accepted to Phys. Rev. C: text is shortened, few figures regarding the nucleon-deuteron elastic scattering observables are removed but a short discussion of the nucleon induced deuteron breakup cross section is added. Conclusions remain unchange