Instabilities in the Nuclear Energy Density Functional

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability issues of nuclear energy density functionals, exploring their origins, diagnostic techniques, and the conditions under which these functionals remain stable in nuclear physics applications.

Contribution

It analyzes the causes of instabilities in nuclear energy density functionals and discusses methods to diagnose and prevent them, clarifying the domain of stable density functions.

Findings

Identifies key sources of instability in nuclear EDFs

Proposes diagnostic techniques for stability assessment

Defines the domain of stable nuclear density functions

Abstract

In the field of Energy Density Functionals (EDF) used in nuclear structure and dynamics, one of the unsolved issues is the stability of the functional. Numerical issues aside, some EDFs are unstable with respect to particular perturbations of the nuclear ground-state density. The aim of this contribution is to raise questions about the origin and nature of these instabilities, the techniques used to diagnose and prevent them, and the domain of density functions in which one should expect a nuclear EDF to be stable.