Nuclear giant resonances from first principles

Abstract

This chapter presents an ab initio perspective on giant resonances in atomic nuclei and surveys the principal theoretical frameworks that aim to describe these collective excitations from first principles. While the study of nuclear giant resonances has traditionally been dominated by the energy density functional approach, recent years have witnessed the development of advanced many-body approaches grounded directly in realistic nuclear interactions, namely, Hamiltonians that reproduce nucleon-nucleon phase shifts and accurately describe the binding energies of light nuclei. Within this modern framework, we review the main many-body methods currently used to compute nuclear response functions. These include the random phase approximation, the Lorentz integral transform coupled-cluster theory, the projected generator-coordinate method, and the self-consistent Green's functions approach. After giving a general conceptual and historical overview of giant-resonance phenomena, we outline the theoretical foundations and computational implementations of each method. We conclude with a critical comparison of their predictions for selected benchmark nuclei, $^{16}$O and $^{40}$Ca, emphasizing points of agreement and divergence, while maintaining a close connection to the relevant experimental observables.