Reexamination of the α-α''fishbone'' potential

The fishbone potential of composite particles simulates the Pauli effect by nonlocal terms. We determine the α-α fishbone potential by simultaneously fitting to two-α resonance energies, experimental phase shifts, and three-α binding energies. We found that, essentially, a simple Gaussian can provide a good description of two-α and three-α experimental data without invoking three-body potentials.