Evidence for Quartet Binding of Valence Neutrons in ${}^8$He

Abstract

Multimodal neutron superfluidity predicts quartets formed as bound states of two spin-singlet $s$-wave neutron pairs. We present evidence that the four valence neutrons of ${}^8$He realize the finite-system analogue. Quartet binding depends not only on the strength of neutron-neutron attraction but also on the number and symmetry of sufficiently strong attractive pair modes. Pauli blocking limits reuse of the same pair structure, while additional modes can provide extra binding. A partial-wave analysis of the neutron-neutron interaction in Daejeon16 no-core shell-model calculations identifies cooperative ${}^1{S}_0$ pairing and additional ${}^3{P}_2$ attraction as the dominant neutron-neutron contributions to this nonadditive binding, while density cumulants reveal connected four-neutron correlations.

Comments: 15 pages, 4 figures