Nucleus-nucleus potential with shell-correction contribution

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive nucleus-nucleus potential model combining macroscopic and shell-correction contributions, fitted to empirical data, to better understand nuclear interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a combined potential model with a simple shell-correction prescription, fitted to extensive empirical barrier data for spherical nuclei.

Findings

The model accurately reproduces empirical barrier heights.

The potential incorporates both macroscopic and shell effects.

Parameters are fitted to a large dataset of nucleus-nucleus systems.

Abstract

The full relaxed-density potential between spherical nuclei is considered as a sum of the macroscopic and shell-correction contributions. The macroscopic part of the potential is related to a nucleus-nucleus potential obtained in the framework of the extended Thomas-Fermi approach with the Skyrme and Coulomb forces and the relaxed-density ansatz for evaluation of proton and neutron densities of interacting nuclei. A simple prescription for the shell-correction part of the total potential is discussed. The parameters of the shell-correction and macroscopic parts of the relaxed-density potential are found by fitting the empirical barrier heights of the 89 nucleus-nucleus systems as well as macroscopic potentials evaluated for 1485 nucleus-nucleus systems at 12 distances around touching points.