Study of spatial structures in α-cluster nuclei

Calculations of the probability densities and energies of the ground states for alpha-cluster nuclei C-12 (3 alpha), O-16 (4 alpha), Ne-20 (5 alpha), Mg-24 (6 alpha), Si-28 (7 alpha) and for nuclear molecules Be-9 (2 alpha + n), Be-10 (2 alpha + 2n), B-10 (2 alpha + n + p), C-10 (2 alpha + 2p), B-11 (2 alpha + 2n + p), C-11(2 alpha + n + 2p) were performed by the Feynman Path Integral method using parallel computing based on NVIDIA CUDA technology. In addition, C-12 (3 alpha) was considered in three-body hyperspherical harmonics formalism with a new effective method of solving hyperradial equation using cubic spline interpolation. The spatial structures of the ground states of C-12 and O-16 correspond to simple geometric shapes, a regular triangle and a tetrahedron, respectively, with wide alpha-cluster clouds in their vertices. The Mg-24 nucleus has the shape of a pair of equal regular triangles with wide alpha-cluster clouds in their vertices as well. The nuclei Be-9, Be-10, B-10, C-10, B-11, C-11 have molecular structure with valence neutrons and/or protons between two alpha-clusters.

Automated summary

In this study, probability densities and energies of the ground states for various alpha-cluster nuclei and nuclear molecules were calculated using the Feynman Path Integral method and parallel computing. The results revealed that C-12 and O-16 have simple geometric shapes of a regular triangle and a tetrahedron, respectively, with wide alpha-cluster clouds in their vertices. Mg-24 nucleus resembles a pair of equal regular triangles. On the other hand, Be-9, Be-10, B-10, C-10, B-11, C-11 have molecular structures with valence neutrons and/or protons between two alpha-clusters.