Relativistic Effects in Nuclear Matter and Nuclei

TL;DR

This paper reviews how relativistic effects influence nuclear matter properties and finite nuclei, emphasizing isospin asymmetry and recent experimental advances from radioactive beam facilities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of relativistic effects in nuclear many-body calculations, focusing on isospin asymmetric systems and their relevance to astrophysics and nuclear structure.

Findings

Relativistic effects significantly impact effective mass and saturation in nuclear matter.

Recent experimental facilities enhance the study of isospin asymmetric nuclear systems.

Microscopic calculations incorporating relativistic effects are promising for finite nuclei analysis.

Abstract

The status of relativistic nuclear many-body calculations of nuclear systems to be built up in terms of protons and neutrons is reviewed. In detail, relativistic effects on several aspects of nuclear matter such as the effective mass, saturation mechanism, and the symmetry energy are considered. This review will especially focus on isospin asymmetric issues, since these aspects are of high interest in astrophysical and nuclear structure studies. Furthermore, from the experimental side these aspects are experiencing an additional boost from a new generation of radioactive beam facilities, e.g. the future GSI facility FAIR in Germany or SPIRAL2 at GANIL/France. Finally, the prospects of studying finite nuclei in microscopic calculations which are based on realistic $NN$ interactions by including relativistic effects in calculations of low momentum interactions are discussed.