Spectroscopic properties of nuclear Skyrme energy density functionals

TL;DR

This paper investigates how to improve the agreement between theoretical and experimental nuclear single-particle energies by incorporating particle-vibration-coupling corrections within Skyrme energy density functionals.

Contribution

It introduces a fully self-consistent method to determine PVC corrections and adjusts SPEs accordingly, highlighting the main source of discrepancies in mean fields.

Findings

PVC corrections improve average agreement with experimental SPEs

Large discrepancies remain even after corrections

Main source of disagreement is the mean field itself

Abstract

We address the question of how to improve the agreement between theoretical nuclear single-particle energies (SPEs) and experiment. Empirically, in doubly magic nuclei, the SPEs can be deduced from spectroscopic properties of odd nuclei that have one more, or one less neutron or proton. Theoretically, bare SPEs, before being confronted with experiment, must be corrected for the effects of the particle-vibration-coupling (PVC). In the present work, we determine the PVC corrections in a fully self-consistent way. Then, we adjust the SPEs, with PVC corrections included, to empirical data. In this way, the agreement with experiment, on average, improves; nevertheless, large discrepancies still remain. We conclude that the main source of disagreement is still in the underlying mean fields, and not in including or neglecting the PVC corrections.