The time-dependent generator coordinate method in nuclear physics

Abstract: The emergence of collective behaviors and the existence of large amplitude motions are both central features in the fields of nuclear structure and reactions. From a theoretical point of view, describing such phenomena requires increasing the complexity of the many-body wavefunction of the system to account for long-range correlations. One of the challenges, when going in this direction, is to keep the approach tractable within our current computational resources while gaining a maximum of predictive power for the phenomenon under study. In the Generator Coordinate Method (GCM), the many-body wave function is a linear superposition of (generally non-orthogonal) many-body states (the generator states) labeled by a few collective coordinates. Such a method has been widely used in structure studies to restore the symmetries broken by single-reference approaches. In the domain of reactions, its time-dependent version (TDGCM) has been developed and applied to predict the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions or fission where the collective fluctuations play an essential role. In this review, we present the recent developments and applications of the TDGCM in nuclear reactions. We recall the formal derivations of the TDGCM and its most common approximate treatment, the Gaussian Overlap Approximation. We also emphasize the Schr\"odinger Collective-Intrinsic Model (SCIM) variant focused on the inclusion of quasiparticle excitations into the description. Finally, we highlight several exploratory studies related to a TDGCM built on time-dependent generator states.