Spin symmetry in the Dirac sea derived from the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates the spin symmetry in the Dirac sea using relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory with the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction, showing improved agreement with experimental data when treating certain states as occupied.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the single-particle potential in the Dirac sea and demonstrates that treating these states as occupied enhances the conservation of spin symmetry.

Findings

Better agreement with experimental data when treating Dirac sea states as occupied

Improved conservation of spin symmetry in the Dirac sea

Consistency with phenomenological relativistic density functional results

Abstract

The spin symmetry in the Dirac sea has been investigated with relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory using the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction. Taking the nucleus $^{16}$O as an example and comparing the theoretical results with the data, the definition of the single-particle potential in the Dirac sea is studied in detail. It is found that if the single-particle states in the Dirac sea are treated as occupied states, the ground state properties are in better agreement with experimental data. Moreover, in this case, the spin symmetry in the Dirac sea is better conserved and it is more consistent with the findings using phenomenological relativistic density functionals.