Toward ab initio density functional theory for nuclei

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development of ab initio density functional theory for nuclei, emphasizing orbital-based functionals derived from microscopic Hamiltonians to improve nuclear many-body calculations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive survey of ab initio DFT approaches for nuclei, highlighting their formulation, challenges, and potential to enhance empirical energy density functionals.

Findings

Orbital-based functionals generalize local-density approximations.

Ab initio methods can derive functionals from microscopic forces.

Discussion of unresolved issues in applying DFT to nuclear systems.

Abstract

We survey approaches to nonrelativistic density functional theory (DFT) for nuclei using progress toward ab initio DFT for Coulomb systems as a guide. Ab initio DFT starts with a microscopic Hamiltonian and is naturally formulated using orbital-based functionals, which generalize the conventional local-density-plus-gradients form. The orbitals satisfy single-particle equations with multiplicative (local) potentials. The DFT functionals can be developed starting from internucleon forces using wave-function based methods or by Legendre transform via effective actions. We describe known and unresolved issues for applying these formulations to the nuclear many-body problem and discuss how ab initio approaches can help improve empirical energy density functionals.