Ground-state properties of 4 He and 16 O extrapolated from lattice QCD with pionless EFT

Abstract

We extend the prediction range of Pionless Effective Field Theory with an analysis of the ground state of O-16 in leading order. To renormalize the theory, we use as input both experimental data and lattice QCD predictions of nuclear observables, which probe the sensitivity of nuclei to increased quark masses. The nuclear many-body Schrodinger equation is solved with the Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo method. For the first time in a nuclear quantum Monte Carlo calculation, a linear optimization procedure, which allows us to devise an accurate trial wave function with a large number of variational parameters, is adopted. The method yields a binding energy of He-4 which is in good agreement with experiment at physical pion mass and with lattice calculations at larger pion masses. At leading order we do not find any evidence of a O-16 state which is stable against breakup into four He-4, although higher-order terms could bind O-16. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.