Semiclassical Description of Exotic Nuclear Shapes

TL;DR

This paper uses semiclassical extended Thomas-Fermi calculations to analyze exotic nuclear shapes like bubbles and tori, exploring their stability and potential astrophysical relevance.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent semiclassical approach to study exotic nuclear configurations with Skyrme forces, including stability analysis.

Findings

Existence of bubble configurations in astrophysical scenarios

Stability of toroidal structures against quadrupole deformation

Identification of energy minima for heavy exotic shapes

Abstract

Exotic nuclear structures such as bubbles and tori are analyzed through semiclassical extended Thomas-Fermi calculations with the Skyrme force SkM$^*$. The variational equations for neutron and proton densities are solved fully self-consistently in spherical (bubbles) and cylindrical (tori) symmetries. The possible existence of bubble configurations in some astrophysical scenarios is discussed. The stability of toroidal structures against change of quadrupole moment is studied. A global minimum of the energy is found in heavy