Microscopic Calculation of $\Lambda-\alpha$ Folding Potential

Abstract

We construct a folding potential between the $\alpha$ and $\Lambda$ particles based on underlying nucleon-nucleon and hyperon-nucleon interactions. Starting from a phenomenological $\Lambda$-N potential and a Gaussian form of the $\alpha$-particle wave function we obtain for the built $\alpha$-$\Lambda$ interaction a bound $^5_\Lambda$He state with the binding energy (3.10 MeV), which is consistent with recent experimental data $3.12 \pm 0.02$ MeV. When in turn an exact solution of the four-body Faddeev-Yakubovsky equation for the $\alpha$-particle calculated with the CDBonn, Nijmegen or Argonne V18 realistic nucleon-nucleon potential is used and the phenomenological Gaussian $\Lambda$-N potential is replaced by the realistic (Nijmegen NSC97f) potential approximated by a rank-1 separable form, then $^5_\Lambda$He is overbound. In particular, its binding energy given by the folding potential generated with the $\alpha$ particle wave function based on the CDBonn potential is 7.47 MeV. Although the rank-1 separable $\Lambda$-N potential reproduces the exact scattering length and the effective range of the original $\Lambda$-N potential, the overbinding results from the lack of the required repulsive properties in the assumed separable form.