Nuclear level density from relativistic density functional theory and combinatorial method

TL;DR

This paper develops a method combining relativistic density functional theory with a combinatorial approach to accurately predict nuclear level densities, emphasizing the effects of pairing and moments of inertia.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach integrating relativistic density functional theory with combinatorial methods for nuclear level density calculations, improving accuracy at low excitation energies.

Findings

The method reproduces experimental data for 112Cd effectively.

Pairing correlations significantly influence nuclear level densities.

The approach outperforms some previous models in accuracy.

Abstract

Nuclear level density is calculated with the combinatorial method based on the relativistic density functional theory including pairing correlations. The Strutinsky method is adopted to smooth the total state density in order to refine the prediction at low excitation energy. The impacts of pairing correlations and moments of inertia on the nuclear level density are discussed in detail. Taking $\mathrm{^{112}Cd}$ as an example, it is demonstrated that the nuclear level density based on the relativistic density functional PC-PK1 can reproduce the experimental data at the same level as or even better than the previous approaches.