Relativistic Nuclear Energy Density Functionals: adjusting parameters to binding energies

TL;DR

This paper develops and refines relativistic nuclear energy density functionals based on nucleon degrees of freedom, accurately fitting nuclear binding energies and properties across a wide range of nuclei using a phenomenological density-dependent approach.

Contribution

It introduces a new density-dependent parametrization of relativistic nuclear energy density functionals guided by microscopic self-energies, improving predictions of nuclear properties.

Findings

Accurately reproduces binding energies of axially deformed nuclei.

Predicts charge radii, deformation, and neutron skin thickness effectively.

Provides a detailed analysis of nuclear matter energies and their relation to finite nuclei.

Abstract

We study a particular class of relativistic nuclear energy density functionals in which only nucleon degrees of freedom are explicitly used in the construction of effective interaction terms. Short-distance (high-momentum) correlations, as well as intermediate and long-range dynamics, are encoded in the medium (nucleon density) dependence of the strength functionals of an effective interaction Lagrangian. Guided by the density dependence of microscopic nucleon self-energies in nuclear matter, a phenomenological ansatz for the density-dependent coupling functionals is accurately determined in self-consistent mean-field calculations of binding energies of a large set of axially deformed nuclei. The relationship between the nuclear matter volume, surface and symmetry energies, and the corresponding predictions for nuclear masses is analyzed in detail. The resulting best-fit parametrization of the nuclear energy density functional is further tested in calculations of properties of spherical and deformed medium-heavy and heavy nuclei, including binding energies, charge radii, deformation parameters, neutron skin thickness, and excitation energies of giant multipole resonances.