Van der Waals five-body size-energy universality

Area of Science:

• Quantum mechanics
• Nuclear physics
• Computational physics

Background:

• Understanding the behavior of few-body quantum systems is crucial for nuclear physics.
• Self-bound quantum systems provide a simplified model for studying fundamental interactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore a universal relationship between scaled size and scaled energy in five-body self-bound quantum systems.
• To investigate how inter-particle interactions affect the binding energy and structure of these systems.

Main Methods:

• Diffusion Monte Carlo method was employed to calculate ground-state binding energy and structure properties.
• Pure estimators were utilized to ensure unbiased estimation of cluster size.
• The study extended analysis from halo to classical systems by strengthening inter-particle interactions.

Main Results:

• A universal scaled size-scaled energy line was identified for homogeneous pentamers with specific long-range potentials.
• This universal line is independent of short-range potential details and binding strength.
• The study found that this universal line can approximate the size-energy ratio for mixed pentamers under certain conditions.

Conclusions:

• The findings suggest a fundamental, scale-invariant property in five-body quantum systems.
• The discovered universal line offers a new perspective on the behavior of quantum clusters.
• The results are consistent with generalized Tjon lines, indicating a linear correlation between pentamer and tetramer binding energies relative to trimer energies.