Charge Radii and Neutron Correlations in Helium Halo Nuclei...

Within the complex-energy configuration interaction framework, we study correlations of valence neutrons to explain the behavior of charge radii in the neutron halo nuclei ^{6,8}He. We find that the experimentally observed decrease of the charge radius between ^{6}He and ^{8}He is caused by a subtle interplay between three effects: dineutron correlations, a spin-orbit contribution to the charge radius, and a core swelling effect. We demonstrate that two-neutron angular correlations in the 2^+}_{1} resonance of ^{6}He differ markedly from the ground-state correlations in ^{6,8}He.