Microscopic four-cluster description of 10Be and 10C with the stochastic variational method Original Research Article

The structure of the 10Be nucleus has been studied by using fully antisymmetrized 10-nucleon wave functions built in a microscopic α+α+n+n four-cluster model. The effective two-nucleon interaction employed contains central and spin–orbit components as well as the Coulomb potential. Stochastic optimization of basis functions has been applied to obtain not only the ground-state but also other bound excited-states which lie below the View the MathML source threshold. Calculated energy spectra and electromagnetic transition rates are in reasonable agreement with experiment. The calculation has reasonably well reproduced the second 0+ state at 6.18 MeV as well as the tightly bound ground-state. The second 0+ state has been found to have spatially very extended structure in which two α-particles are separated like in 8Be. The change of neutron and proton density distributions is analyzed for 8Be to 10Be as a function of the number of valence neutrons outside two α-particles. The basis functions obtained for 10Be are used to calculate some of the properties of its mirror nucleus 10C.