The existence of multi-neutron systems has always been a debatable question. Indeed, both internucleon correlations and a large continuum coupling occur in these states. We then employ the ab-initio no-core Gamow shell model to calculate the resonant energies and widths of the trineutron and tetraneutron systems with realistic interactions. Our results indicate that trineutron and tetraneutron are both unbound and bear broad widths. The calculated energy and width of tetraneutron are also comparable with recent experimental data. Moreover, our calculations suggest that the energy of trineutron is lower than that of tetraneutron, while its resonance width is also narrower. This strongly suggests that trineutron is more likely to be experimentally observed than tetraneutron. We thus suggest experimentalists to search for trineutron at low energy.

The Gamow shell model is utilized to describe nuclear observables of the weakly bound and resonance isotonic states of 16 O at proton drip-line. It is hereby shown that the presence of continuum coupling leads to complex Coulomb contributions in the spectrum of these isotones. The necessity to include the effects of three-body forces, either by a direct calculation or by adding an A-dependence to the nucleon-nucleon interaction, already noticed in other theoretical models, is pointed out. It is also demonstrated that our approach is predictive for reaction observables.