Ab initio informed 20Ne(p, pα)16O reaction elucidates the emergence of alpha clustering from chiral potentials

We report on the first \textit{ab initio} informed $\alpha$ knock-out reaction in the intermediate-mass region, with the aim to probe the underlying chiral potential and its impact on the emergence of alpha clustering in this mass region. The theoretical predictions of the $\alpha+^{16}$O clustering in the $^{20}$Ne ground state, based on the \textit{ab initio} symmetry-adapted no-core shell model, yield a triple differential cross section for $^{20}$Ne(p, p$\alpha$)$^{16}$O that is in a remarkable agreement with the data. This allows us to examine predictions of surface and in-medium $\alpha$-cluster features from a chiral potential and to compare these to the successful antisymmetrized molecular dynamics approach.