Renormalizing two-neutron halo nuclei without neutron–core interaction

Abstract We consider the effective field theory (EFT) scheme proposed by Hongo and Son (HS) to describe two-neutron halo nuclei where the neutron–core interaction is subleading. In this EFT, the ratio of the mean-square matter radius and charge radius is universal in so far that it only depends on the two-neutron separation energy of the nucleus and the neutron–neutron scattering length. By investigating the divergence structure of this theory, we find that one further renormalization condition is required to predict both radii separately. Our renormalization scheme uses one of the mean square radii or the scattering amplitude as input. We use the HS scheme to calculate the matter radii of the two-neutron halo nuclei 11 Li, 14 Be, 17 B, 19 B, and 22 C and compare to the values obtained with standard Halo EFT. In this comparison we use both the physical value of the neutron–core scattering length and rescaled values. We observe good convergence against the HS scheme for the case of a negligible neutron–core interaction. Similar agreement for the radii is also found in the case of the halo nucleus 6 He, where the n c interaction is in the p-wave. Our renormalization scheme makes the restriction in the ultraviolet cutoff range from the Landau pole explicit. We calculate the position of the Landau pole for various halo nuclei. In all cases the Landau pole restricts the cutoff to rather low values. Finally, we derive an explicit expression for the three-to-three neutron–neutron–core scattering amplitude and discuss its cut structure.