Reflection-asymmetric nuclear deformations within the Density Functional Theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new DFT solver to study reflection-asymmetric nuclear shapes and their impact on ground-state energies, with applications to radium and thorium isotopes.

Contribution

We developed AxialHFB, a novel DFT solver using an approximate second-order gradient for solving HFB equations with Skyrme functionals.

Findings

Reflection-asymmetric shapes significantly affect nuclear binding energies.

The new solver enables more accurate modeling of nuclear deformations.

Results provide insights into the structure of radium and thorium isotopes.

Abstract

Within the nuclear density functional theory (DFT) we study the effect of reflection-asymmetric shapes on ground-state binding energies and binding energy differences. To this end, we developed the new DFT solver AxialHFB that uses an approximate second-order gradient to solve the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov equations of superconducting DFT with the quasi-local Skyrme energy density functionals. Illustrative calculations are carried out for even-even isotopes of radium and thorium.