Ground-state properties of ⁴He and ¹⁶O extrapolated from lattice QCD with pionless EFT

We extend the prediction range of Pionless Effective Field Theory with an analysis of the ground state of ¹⁶O in leading order. To renormalize the theory, we use as input both experimental data and lattice QCD predictions of nuclear observables, which probe the sensitivity of nuclei to increased quark masses. The nuclear many-body Schrödinger equation is solved with the Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo method. For the first time in a nuclear quantum Monte Carlo calculation, a linear optimization procedure, which allows us to devise an accurate trial wave function with a large number of variational parameters, is adopted. The method yields a binding energy of ⁴He which is in good agreement with experiment at physical pion mass and with lattice calculations at larger pion masses. At leading order we do not find any evidence of a ¹⁶O state which is stable against breakup into four ⁴He, although higher-order terms could bind ¹⁶O.