Mass Predictions of Atomic Nuclei in the Infinite Nuclear Matter Model

TL;DR

This paper presents extensive nuclear mass predictions using the infinite nuclear matter model, revealing new magic numbers, islands of stability, and improved accuracy over previous models.

Contribution

The study enhances nuclear mass predictions by incorporating larger data sets, higher solution accuracy, and identifying new nuclear stability phenomena.

Findings

Identification of new magic numbers in drip-line regions.

Discovery of islands of inversion in neutron-rich nuclei.

Significant reduction in mass prediction errors compared to previous models.

Abstract

We present here the mass excesses, binding energies, one- and two- neutron, one and two- proton and \alpha-particle separation energies of 6727 nuclei in the ranges 4 \leq Z \leq 120 and 8 \leq A \leq 303 calculated in the infinite nuclear matter model. Compared to our predictions of 1999 mass table, the present ones are obtained using larger data base of 2003 mass table of Wapstra and Audi and resorting to higher accuracy in the solutions of the \eta-differential equations of the INM model. The local energy \eta's supposed to carry signature of the characteristic properties of nuclei are found to possess the predictive capability. In fact \eta-systematics reveal new magic numbers in the drip-line regions giving rise to new islands of stability supported by relativistic mean field theoretic calculations. This is a manifestation of a new phenomenon where shell-effect overcomes the instability due to repulsive components of the nucleon-nucleon force broadening the stability peninsula. The two-neutron separation energy-systematics derived from the present mass predictions reveal a general new feature for the existence of islands of inversion in the exotic neutron rich regions of nuclear landscape, apart from supporting the presently known islands around 31Na and 62Ti. The five global parameters representing the properties of infinite nuclear matter, the surface, the Coulomb and the pairing terms are retained as per our 1999 mass table. The root-mean-square deviation of the present mass-fit to 2198 known masses is 342 keV, while the mean deviation is 1.3 keV, reminiscent of no left-over systematic effects. This is a substantive improvement over our 1999 mass table having rms deviation of 401 keV and mean deviation of 9 keV for 1884 data nuclei.