Ground state octupole correlation energies with effective forces

TL;DR

This paper calculates ground state octupole correlation energies using the Gogny force, analyzing their effects at various levels and concluding they do not significantly improve binding energy predictions or alter shell gap issues.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of octupole correlation energies across multiple theoretical frameworks using the Gogny force, highlighting their limited impact on binding energy trends.

Findings

Octupole correlations do not significantly affect binding energy trends.

Shell gaps predicted by mean field models remain largely unchanged.

Octupole correlations do not improve the accuracy of theoretical models in astrophysics contexts.

Abstract

The ground state octupole correlation energy is computed with the D1M variant of the Gogny force in different theoretical frameworks and analyzed in detail. First I consider the correlation energy gained at the mean field level by breaking reflection symmetry. Next I consider the energy gain coming from symmetry (parity) restoration and finally I analyze the ground state correlation energy after configuration mixing with axially symmetric octupole states. The impact of the latter on theoretical binding energies indicates that octupole correlations do not affect in a significant way the trend and systematic of binding energies and therefore can not improve the performance of theoretical models in this respect. In particular, the too-large "shell gaps" predicted by self-consistent mean field models and relevant in astrophysics scenarios are not altered by the octupole correlations.