Reconciling Light Nuclei and Nuclear Matter: Relativistic <i>ab initio</i> Calculations

Abstract An accurate and simultaneous ab initio prediction for both light nuclei and nuclear matter has been a long-standing challenge in nuclear physics, due to the significant uncertainties associated with the three-nucleon forces. In this Letter, we develop the relativistic quantum Monte Carlo methods for the nuclear ab initio problem, and calculate the ground-state energies of A ≤ 4 nuclei using the two-nucleon Bonn force with an unprecedented high accuracy. The present relativistic results significantly outperform the nonrelativistic results with only two-nucleon forces. We demonstrate that both light nuclei and nuclear matter can be well described simultaneously in the relativistic ab initio calculations, even in the absence of three-nucleon forces, and a correlation between the properties of light A ≤ 4 nuclei and the nuclear saturation is revealed. This provides a quantitative understanding of the connection between the light nuclei and nuclear matter saturation properties.