Fully self-consistent multiparticle-multihole configuration mixing method : applications to a few light nuclei

Overview & Synopsis

This thesis project takes part in the development of the multiparticle-multihole configuration mixing method aiming to describe the structure of atomic nuclei. Based on a double variational principle, this approach allows to determine the expansion coefficients of the wave function and the single-particle states at the same time. In this work we apply for the first time the fully self-consistent formalism of the mp-mh method to the description of a few p- and sd-shell nuclei, using the D1S Gogny interaction.A first study of the 12C nucleus is performed in order to test the doubly iterative convergence procedure when different types of truncation criteria are applied to select the many-body configurations included in the wave-function. A detailed analysis of the effect caused by the orbital optimization is conducted. In particular, its impact on the one-body density and on the fragmentation of the ground state wave function is analyzed.A systematic study of sd-shell nuclei is then performed. A careful analysis of the correlation content of the ground state is first conducted and observables quantities such as binding and separation energies, as well as charge radii are calculated and compared to experimental data. Satisfactory results are found. Spectroscopic properties are also studied. Excitation energies of low-lying states are found in very good agreement with experiment, and the study of magnetic dipole features are also satisfactory. Calculation of electric quadrupole properties, and in particular transition probabilities B(E2), however reveal a clear lack of collectivity of the wave function, due to the reduced valence space used to select the many-body configurations. Although the renormalization of orbitals leads to an important fragmentation of the ground state wave function, only little effect is observed on B(E2) probabilities. A tentative explanation is given.Finally, the structure description of nuclei provided by the multiparticle-multihole configuration mixing method is utilized to study reaction mechanisms such as electron and proton inelastic scattering on sd-shell nuclei. Although the results also suffer from the lack of collectivity, the experimental trends are well reproduced and improved by the orbital optimization.