Continuum effects and three-nucleon forces in neutron-rich oxygen isotopes

Abstract

We employ interactions from chiral effective field theory and compute binding energies, excited states, and radii for isotopes of oxygen with the coupled-cluster method. Our calculation includes the effects of three-nucleon forces and of the particle continuum, both of which are important for the description of neutron-rich isotopes in the vicinity of the nucleus O24. Our main results are the placement of the neutron drip line at O24, the assignment of spins, parities and resonance widths for several low-lying states of the drip line nucleus, and an efficient approximation that incorporates the effects of three-body interactions. © 2012 American Physical Society.