Nuclear symmetry energy at subnormal densities from measured nuclear masses

TL;DR

This paper derives the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy at subnormal densities by analyzing over 2000 measured nuclear masses, providing insights into nuclear matter properties relevant for nuclear physics and astrophysics.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-empirical method to connect nuclear mass data with the symmetry energy at subnormal densities, offering a new approach to study nuclear matter.

Findings

Symmetry energy coefficients for A=20~250 nuclei are extracted from measured masses.

The density dependence of symmetry energy at subnormal densities is characterized.

Results are consistent with other independent methods.

Abstract

The symmetry energy coefficients for nuclei with mass number A=20~250 are extracted from more than 2000 measured nuclear masses. With the semi-empirical connection between the symmetry energy coefficients of finite nuclei and the nuclear symmetry energy at reference densities, we investigate the density dependence of symmetry energy of nuclear matter at subnormal densities. The obtained results are compared with those extracted from other methods.