Quantifying alpha clustering in the ground states of 16-O and 20-Ne
Abstract
Understanding the role of multi-nucleon correlations in the structure of light nuclei is at the forefront of modern nuclear science. In this letter, we present a quantitative benchmark study of alpha-cluster correlations in the ground states of 16-O and 20-Ne. Experimental data provide direct evidence that the wave functions of the ground states of 16-O and 20-Ne are dominated by alpha-cluster correlations, in agreement with the predictions of sophisticated nuclear structure models. We also provide a new model-independent constraint for the alpha asymptotic normalization coefficient of the 16-O ground state and discuss the implications of these findings on the 12-C(alpha,gamma)16-O reaction, which is of critical importance for nuclear astrophysics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.17059,
title = {Quantifying alpha clustering in the ground states of 16-O and 20-Ne},
author = {E. Harris and M. Barbui and J. Bishop and G. Chubarian and Sebastian Konig and E. Koshchiy and K. D. Launey and Dean Lee and Zifeng Luo and Yuan-Zhuo Ma and Ulf-G. Meissner and C. E. Parker and Zhengxue Ren and M. Roosa and A. Saastamoinen and G. H. Sargsyan and D. P. Scriven and Shihang Shen and A. Volya and Hang Yu and G. V. Rogachev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.17059},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Main text: 6 pages, 2 figures, one table Supplemental materials: 4 pages, 5 figures