Implications of parity-violating electron scattering experiments on $^{48}$Ca (CREX) and $^{208}$Pb (PREX-II) for nuclear energy density functionals

Understand

Recent precise parity-violating electron scattering experiments on $^{48}$Ca (CREX) and $^{208}$Pb (PREX-II) provide a new insight on the formation of neutron skin in nuclei.

• Within the energy density functional (EDF) framework, we investigate the implications of CREX and PREX-II data on nuclear matter symmetry energy and isovector properties of finite nuclei: neutron skin thickness and dipole polarizability.
• The weak-charge form factors from the CREX and PREX-II experiments are employed directly in constraining the relativistic density-dependent point coupling EDFs.
• The EDF established with the CREX data acquires considerably smaller values of the symmetry energy parameters, neutron skin thickness and dipole polarizability both for $^{48}$Ca and $^{208}$Pb, in comparison to the EDF obtained using the PREX-II data, and previously established EDFs.