000826208 001__ 826208 000826208 005__ 20240610120750.0 000826208 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.132501 000826208 0247_ $$2ISSN$$a0031-9007 000826208 0247_ $$2ISSN$$a1079-7114 000826208 0247_ $$2ISSN$$a1092-0145 000826208 0247_ $$2arXiv$$aarXiv:1602.04539 000826208 0247_ $$2Handle$$a2128/13609 000826208 0247_ $$2WOS$$aWOS:000383848500001 000826208 0247_ $$2altmetric$$aaltmetric:5614673 000826208 0247_ $$2pmid$$apmid:27715077 000826208 037__ $$aFZJ-2017-00454 000826208 082__ $$a550 000826208 1001_ $$0P:(DE-HGF)0$$aElhatisari, Serdar$$b0 000826208 245__ $$aNuclear Binding Near a Quantum Phase Transition 000826208 260__ $$aCollege Park, Md.$$bAPS$$c2016 000826208 3367_ $$2DRIVER$$aarticle 000826208 3367_ $$2DataCite$$aOutput Types/Journal article 000826208 3367_ $$0PUB:(DE-HGF)16$$2PUB:(DE-HGF)$$aJournal Article$$bjournal$$mjournal$$s1502116839_15122 000826208 3367_ $$2BibTeX$$aARTICLE 000826208 3367_ $$2ORCID$$aJOURNAL_ARTICLE 000826208 3367_ $$00$$2EndNote$$aJournal Article 000826208 500__ $$aPublished version to appear in Physical Review Letters. Main: 5 pages, 3 figures. Supplemental material: 13 pages, 6 figures 000826208 520__ $$aHow do protons and neutrons bind to form nuclei? This is the central question of ab initio nuclear structure theory. While the answer may seem as simple as the fact that nuclear forces are attractive, the full story is more complex and interesting. In this work we present numerical evidence from ab initio lattice simulations showing that nature is near a quantum phase transition, a zero-temperature transition driven by quantum fluctuations. Using lattice effective field theory, we perform Monte Carlo simulations for systems with up to twenty nucleons. For even and equal numbers of protons and neutrons, we discover a first-order transition at zero temperature from a Bose-condensed gas of alpha particles (4He nuclei) to a nuclear liquid. Whether one has an alpha-particle gas or nuclear liquid is determined by the strength of the alpha-alpha interactions, and we show that the alpha-alpha interactions depend on the strength and locality of the nucleon-nucleon interactions. This insight should be useful in improving calculations of nuclear structure and important astrophysical reactions involving alpha capture on nuclei. Our findings also provide a tool to probe the structure of alpha cluster states such as the Hoyle state responsible for the production of carbon in red giant stars and point to a connection between nuclear states and the universal physics of bosons at large scattering length. 000826208 536__ $$0G:(DE-HGF)POF3-511$$a511 - Computational Science and Mathematical Methods (POF3-511)$$cPOF3-511$$fPOF III$$x0 000826208 536__ $$0G:(GEPRIS)196253076$$aDFG project 196253076 - TRR 110: Symmetrien und Strukturbildung in der Quantenchromodynamik (196253076)$$c196253076$$x1 000826208 536__ $$0G:(DE-Juel1)hfz02_20150501$$aNuclear Lattice Simulations (hfz02_20150501)$$chfz02_20150501$$fNuclear Lattice Simulations$$x2 000826208 588__ $$aDataset connected to arXivarXiv, CrossRef 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-Juel1)159474$$aLi, Ning$$b1$$ufzj 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-HGF)0$$aRokash, Alexander$$b2 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-HGF)0$$aAlarcón, Jose Manuel$$b3 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-Juel1)161155$$aDu, Dechuan$$b4 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-HGF)0$$aKlein, Nico$$b5 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-HGF)0$$aLu, Bing-nan$$b6 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-Juel1)131252$$aMeißner, Ulf-G.$$b7$$ufzj 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-Juel1)131142$$aEpelbaum, Evgeny$$b8 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-Juel1)131216$$aKrebs, Hermann$$b9 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-HGF)0$$aLähde, Timo A.$$b10 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-Juel1)156278$$aLee, Dean$$b11$$ufzj 000826208 7001_ $$0P:(DE-HGF)0$$aRupak, Gautam$$b12 000826208 773__ $$0PERI:(DE-600)1472655-5$$a10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.132501$$gVol. 117, no. 13, p. 132501$$n13$$p132501$$tPhysical review letters$$v117$$x1079-7114$$y2016 000826208 8564_ $$uhttps://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/826208/files/PhysRevLett.117.132501.pdf$$yOpenAccess 000826208 8564_ $$uhttps://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/826208/files/PhysRevLett.117.132501.gif?subformat=icon$$xicon$$yOpenAccess 000826208 8564_ $$uhttps://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/826208/files/PhysRevLett.117.132501.jpg?subformat=icon-1440$$xicon-1440$$yOpenAccess 000826208 8564_ $$uhttps://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/826208/files/PhysRevLett.117.132501.jpg?subformat=icon-180$$xicon-180$$yOpenAccess 000826208 8564_ $$uhttps://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/826208/files/PhysRevLett.117.132501.jpg?subformat=icon-640$$xicon-640$$yOpenAccess 000826208 8564_ $$uhttps://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/826208/files/PhysRevLett.117.132501.pdf?subformat=pdfa$$xpdfa$$yOpenAccess 000826208 909CO $$ooai:juser.fz-juelich.de:826208$$pdnbdelivery$$pVDB$$pdriver$$popen_access$$popenaire 000826208 9101_ $$0I:(DE-588b)5008462-8$$6P:(DE-Juel1)159474$$aForschungszentrum Jülich$$b1$$kFZJ 000826208 9101_ $$0I:(DE-588b)5008462-8$$6P:(DE-Juel1)131252$$aForschungszentrum Jülich$$b7$$kFZJ 000826208 9101_ $$0I:(DE-588b)5008462-8$$6P:(DE-Juel1)156278$$aForschungszentrum Jülich$$b11$$kFZJ 000826208 9131_ $$0G:(DE-HGF)POF3-511$$1G:(DE-HGF)POF3-510$$2G:(DE-HGF)POF3-500$$3G:(DE-HGF)POF3$$4G:(DE-HGF)POF$$aDE-HGF$$bKey Technologies$$lSupercomputing & Big Data$$vComputational Science and Mathematical Methods$$x0 000826208 9141_ $$y2016 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0200$$2StatID$$aDBCoverage$$bSCOPUS 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0600$$2StatID$$aDBCoverage$$bEbsco Academic Search 000826208 915__ $$0LIC:(DE-HGF)APS-112012$$2HGFVOC$$aAmerican Physical Society Transfer of Copyright Agreement 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0100$$2StatID$$aJCR$$bPHYS REV LETT : 2015 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)9905$$2StatID$$aIF >= 5$$bPHYS REV LETT : 2015 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0150$$2StatID$$aDBCoverage$$bWeb of Science Core Collection 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0110$$2StatID$$aWoS$$bScience Citation Index 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0111$$2StatID$$aWoS$$bScience Citation Index Expanded 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0510$$2StatID$$aOpenAccess 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0030$$2StatID$$aPeer Review$$bASC 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)1150$$2StatID$$aDBCoverage$$bCurrent Contents - Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0310$$2StatID$$aDBCoverage$$bNCBI Molecular Biology Database 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0300$$2StatID$$aDBCoverage$$bMedline 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0420$$2StatID$$aNationallizenz 000826208 915__ $$0StatID:(DE-HGF)0199$$2StatID$$aDBCoverage$$bThomson Reuters Master Journal List 000826208 9201_ $$0I:(DE-Juel1)IAS-4-20090406$$kIAS-4$$lTheorie der Starken Wechselwirkung$$x0 000826208 9201_ $$0I:(DE-Juel1)IKP-3-20111104$$kIKP-3$$lTheorie der starken Wechselwirkung$$x1 000826208 9201_ $$0I:(DE-Juel1)NIC-20090406$$kNIC$$lJohn von Neumann - Institut für Computing$$x2 000826208 9801_ $$aFullTexts 000826208 980__ $$ajournal 000826208 980__ $$aVDB 000826208 980__ $$aI:(DE-Juel1)IAS-4-20090406 000826208 980__ $$aI:(DE-Juel1)IKP-3-20111104 000826208 980__ $$aI:(DE-Juel1)NIC-20090406 000826208 980__ $$aUNRESTRICTED 000826208 981__ $$aI:(DE-Juel1)IAS-4-20090406