Summary

The ability to model the nature of the strong interaction at the nuclear scale using ab initio approaches and the development of high-performance computing is allowing a greater understanding of the details of the structure of light nuclei. The nature of the nucleon–nucleon interaction is such that it promotes the creation of clusters, mainly α-particles, inside the nuclear medium. The emergence of these clusters and understanding the resultant structures they create has been a long-standing area of study. At low excitation energies, close to the ground state, there is a strong connection between symmetries associated with mean-field, single-particle behavior and the geometric arrangement of the clusters, while at higher excitation energies, when the cluster decay threshold is reached, there is a transition to a more gas-like cluster behavior. State-of-the-art calculations now guide the thinking in these two regimes, but there are some key underpinning principles that they reflect. Building from the simple ideas to the state of the art, a thread is created by which the more complex calculations have a foundation, developing a description of the evolution of clustering from α-particle to ¹⁶O clusters.