Fermionic Molecular Dynamics (FMD) is a microscopic many-body approach which has been used successfully to study the structure of light nuclei in the pand sd-shell. FMD uses a Gaussian wave packet basis which contains the harmonic oscillator shell model and Brink-type cluster model wave functions as limiting cases. A realistic effective interaction that has been derived from the Argonne V18 int...

For solar conditions, we numerically integrate the density matrix equation for a thermal electron in the eld of a 7 Be ion and other plasma ions and smeared-out electrons. With this technique, we can calculate the capture rate without assuming either the existence of bound states or requiring uctuations to be spherical. Our results are in agreement with previous calculations that are based on a...

The vacuum-polarization corrections to rates for nuclear-fusion reactions in the pp chain and in the CNO cycle are calculated. For the reactions of particular importance to the solar-neutrino problem, the 3He(3He, 2p)4He, 3He(α, γ)7Be, 7Be(p, γ)8B, and 14N(p, γ)15O reactions, we find the magnitude of the effect to be less than 2%. The effect of VP on all the other reaction rates is expected to ...