Predictive power for superheavy nuclear mass and possible stability beyond the neutron drip line in deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the predictive accuracy of the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum (DRHBc) for superheavy nuclear masses and explores potential multineutron stability beyond the neutron drip line, highlighting deformation effects.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness of DRHBc in predicting superheavy nuclear masses and identifies nuclei stable against multineutron emission, emphasizing the role of deformation and continuum effects.

Findings

DRHBc predicts nuclear masses with ~0.64 MeV accuracy.

Identifies nuclei stable against multineutron emission beyond the drip line.

Deformation significantly influences the stability peninsula.

Abstract

The predictive power of the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum (DRHBc) for nuclear mass is examined in the superheavy region, $102 \le Z \le 120$. The accuracy of predicting the 10 (56) measured (measured and empirical) masses is $0.635$ ($0.642$) MeV, in comparison with $0.515$ ($1.360$) MeV by WS4 and $0.910$ ($2.831$) MeV by FRDM. Possible stability against multineutron emission beyond the two-neutron drip line is explored by the DRHBc theory, which takes into account simultaneously the deformation effects, the pairing correlations, and the continuum effects. Nuclei stable against two- and multineutron emissions beyond the two-neutron drip line are predicted in $_{106}$Sg, $_{108}$Hs, $_{110}$Ds, and $_{112}$Cn isotopic chains, forming a peninsula of stability adjacent to the nuclear mainland. This stability is mainly due to the deformation which significantly affects the shell structure around the Fermi surface. The pairing correlations and continuum influence the stability peninsula in a self-consistent way.