Superfluid Local Density Approximation: A Density Functional Theory Approach to the Nuclear Pairing Problem

TL;DR

This paper develops a density functional theory framework, called Superfluid Local Density Approximation, to model pairing correlations in diverse fermionic systems including nuclei and neutron stars, enabling analysis of ground and excited states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel DFT approach for pairing correlations applicable across various fermionic systems, integrating microscopic input for comprehensive property predictions.

Findings

Successfully applied to dilute fermions, neutron stars, and finite nuclei.

Capable of describing ground state, excited states, and time-dependent phenomena.

Provides a unified formalism based on microscopic input.

Abstract

I describe the foundation of a Density Functional Theory approach to include pairing correlations, which was applied to a variety of systems ranging from dilute fermions, to neutron stars and finite nuclei. Ground state properties as well as properties of excited states and time-dependent phenomena can be achieved in this manner within a formalism based on microscopic input.