First principles description of the giant dipole resonance in 16O

We present a calculation of the giant dipole resonance in (16)O based on a nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction from chiral effective field theory that reproduces NN scattering data with high accuracy. By merging the Lorentz integral transform and the coupled-cluster methods, we extend the previous theoretical limits for breakup observables in light nuclei with mass numbers (A ≤ 7) and address the collective giant dipole resonance of (16)O. We successfully benchmark the new approach against virtually exact results from the hyperspherical harmonics method in (4)He. Our results for (16)O reproduce the position and the total strength (bremsstrahlung sum rule) of the dipole response very well. When compared to the cross section from photoabsorption experiments, the theoretical curve exhibits a smeared form of the peak. The tail region between 40 and 100 MeV is reproduced within uncertainties.