Effective interactions between nuclear clusters

Abstract

The effective interactions between two nuclear clusters, d+d, t+t, and α+α, are investigated within a cluster model using local nucleon-nucleon (NN) forces. It is shown that the interaction in the spin-aligned d+d system is repulsive for all intercluster distances, whereas the α+α and spin-aligned t+t systems are attractive at intermediate distances. The Pauli blocking between identical-nucleon pairs is responsible for the cluster-cluster repulsion and becomes dominant in the shallow binding limit. We demonstrate that two d clusters could be bound if the NN force has nonzero range and is strong enough to form a deeply bound d cluster, or if the NN force has both even-parity and odd-parity attraction. Effective dimer-dimer interactions for general quantum systems of two-component fermions are also discussed in heavy-light mass limit, where one component is much heavier than the other, and their relation to intercluster interactions in nuclear systems are discussed. Our findings provide a conceptual foundation for conclusions obtained numerically in the literature, that increasing the range or strength of the local part of the attractive nucleon-nucleon interaction results in a more attractive cluster-cluster interaction.