Effect of temperature on the effective mass and the neutron skin of nuclei

TL;DR

This paper investigates how finite temperature affects the effective mass and neutron skin of nuclei using Hartree-Fock-BCS with Skyrme forces, revealing temperature-dependent changes in radii, neutron skin, and effective mass.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of temperature effects on nuclear properties, highlighting the correlation between effective mass and critical temperature across different Skyrme functionals.

Findings

Proton and neutron radii increase with temperature, especially in neutron-rich nuclei.

Effective masses for protons and neutrons behave differently below and above the critical temperature.

The correlation between effective mass and critical temperature depends on the pairing prescription.

Abstract

We study the finite temperature Hartree-Fock-BCS approximation for selected stable Sn nuclei with zero-range Skyrme forces. Hartree Fock BCS approximation allows for a straightforward interpretation of the results since it involves u and v's which are not matrices as in HFB. Pairing transitions from superfluid to the normal state are studied with respect to the temperature. The temperature dependence of the nuclear radii and neutron skin are also analyzed. An increase of proton and neutron radii is obtained in neutron rich nuclei especially above the critical temperature. Using different Skyrme energy functionals, it is found that the correlation between the effective mass in symmetric nuclear matter and the critical temperature depends on the pairing prescription. The temperature dependence of the nucleon effective mass is also investigated, showing that proton and neutron effective masses display different behavior below and above the critical temperature, due to the small temperature dependence of the density.