The impact of the surface energy coefficient on the deformation properties of atomic nuclei as predicted by Skyrme energy density functionals

Understand

In the framework of nuclear energy density functional (EDF) methods, many nuclear phenomena are related to the deformation of intrinsic states.

• Their accurate modeling relies on the correct description of the change of nuclear binding energy with deformation.
• The two most important contributions to the deformation energy have their origin in shell effects that are correlated to the spectrum of single-particle states, and the deformability of nuclear matter, that can be characterized by a model-dependent surface energy coefficient a_{surf}.
• With the goal of improving the global performance of nuclear EDFs through fine-tuning of their deformation properties, the purpose of this study is threefold.