The nuclear symmetry energy from relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock model

TL;DR

This paper investigates the nuclear symmetry energy using the relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock model with a realistic potential, decomposing contributions and analyzing medium effects, tensor forces, and covariant amplitudes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed decomposition of symmetry energy contributions and highlights the roles of nucleon self-energy and nucleon-nucleon interactions in a relativistic framework.

Findings

Nucleon self-energy significantly increases symmetry energy.

Nuclear medium effects on interactions reduce symmetry energy.

Tensor force is crucial around nuclear saturation density.

Abstract

The microscopic mechanisms of the symmetry energy in nuclear matter are investigated in the framework of the relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (RBHF) model with a high-precision realistic nuclear potential, pvCDBonn A. The kinetic energy and potential contributions to symmetry energy are decomposed. They are explicitly expressed by the nucleon self-energies, which are obtained through projecting the $G$-matrices from the RBHF model into the terms of Lorentz covariants. The nuclear medium effects on the nucleon self-energy and nucleon-nucleon interaction in symmetry energy are discussed by comparing the results from the RBHF model and those from Hartree-Fock and relativistic Hartree-Fock models. It is found that the nucleon self-energy including the nuclear medium effect on the single-nucleon wave function provides a largely positive contribution to the symmetry energy, while {the nuclear medium effect on the nucleon-nucleon interaction, i.e., the effective $G$-matrices generates the negative contribution}. The tensor force plays an essential role in the symmetry energy around the density. The scalar and vector covariant amplitudes of nucleon-nucleon interaction dominate the potential component of the symmetry energy. Furthermore, the isoscalar and isovector terms in the optical potential are extracted from the RBHF model. The isoscalar part is consistent with the results from the analysis of global optical potential, while the isovector one has obvious differences at higher incident energy due to the relativistic effect.