Nuclear Structure and Dynamics

Unified ab initio approach to bound and unbound states

Unified ab initio approach to bound and unbound states: Theoretical understanding of weakly bound and unbound atomic nuclei produced and investigated at TRIUMF and other rare isotope facilities requires quantum mechanical description that includes continuum effects, in other words, the nuclear bound and unbound states must be treated on the same footing. As reported in Physical Review Letters C (2013), TRIUMF nuclear theorists achieved such a description by introducing a novel ab initio approach called no-core shell model with continuum capable of predicting properties of exotic nuclei from basic interactions between nucleons. As the first demonstration of this approach we calculated the properties of resonances of the unbound exotic 7He nucleus that was subject of several experimental investigations contradicting each other especially in properties of a low-lying ½- resonance. Our results clearly discriminated among three experiments agreeing with only one of them.