Fission barriers in actinides in covariant density functional theory: the role of triaxiality

TL;DR

This study uses covariant density functional theory with triaxial deformations to accurately model fission barriers in actinides, highlighting the importance of triaxiality in these calculations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that covariant density functional theory can match the accuracy of non-relativistic methods in predicting actinide fission barriers, emphasizing the role of triaxiality.

Findings

Triaxiality significantly affects the first saddle in fission barriers.

Covariant density functional theory achieves comparable accuracy to phenomenological models.

Different pairing schemes are systematically analyzed.

Abstract

Relativistic mean field theory allowing for triaxial deformations is applied for a systematic study of fission barriers in the actinide region. Different pairing schemes are studied in details and it is shown that covariant density functional theory is able to describe fission barriers on a level of accuracy comparable with non-relativistic calculations, even with the best phenomenological macroscopic+microscopic approaches. Triaxiality in the region of the first saddle plays a crucial role in achieving that.