The three-dimensional tilted axis cranking covariant density functional theory (3D-TAC CDFT) is used to study the chiral modes in $^{135}$Nd. By modeling the motion of the nucleus in rotating mean field as the interplay between the single-particle motions of several valence particle(s) and hole(s) and the collective motion of a core-like part, a classical Routhian is extracted. This classical Routhian gives qualitative agreement with the 3D-TAC CDFT result for the critical frequency corresponding to the transition from planar to aplanar rotation. Based on this investigation a possible understanding of tilted rotation appearing in a microscopic theory is provided.
The nuclear multiple chirality in $A\sim60$ mass region is explored by the adiabatic and configuration-fixed constrained covariant density functional theory for cobalt isotopes. The potential-energy curves and triaxiality parameters $γ$ as functions of the deformation parameter $β$ in $^{54,56,57,58,59,60}$Co are obtained. It is found that there are high-$j$ particle(s) and hole(s) configurations with prominent triaxially deformed shapes in these isotopes. This points towards that the existence of chirality or multiple chirality in $A\sim60$ mass region are highly anticipated.
Covariant density functional theory and three-dimensional tilted axis cranking are used to investigate multiple chirality in nuclear rotation for the first time in a fully self-consistent and microscopic way. Two distinct sets of chiral solutions with negative and positive parities, respectively, are found in the nucleus 106Rh. The negative-parity solutions reproduce well the corresponding experimental spectrum as well as the B(M1)/B(E2) ratios of the transition strengths. This indicates that a predicted positive-parity chiral band should also exist. Therefore, it provides a further strong hin…
It is shown that the rotating mean field of triaxial nuclei can break the chiral symmetry. Two nearly degenerate $ΔI =1 $ rotational bands originate from the left-handed and right-handed solution.
The recent progress in the studies of nuclear charge-exchange excitations with localized covariant density functional theory is briefly presented, by taking the fine structure of spin-dipole excitations in 16O as an example. It is shown that the constraints introduced by the Fock terms of the relativistic Hartree-Fock scheme into the particle-hole residual interactions are straightforward and robust.
Spin and isospin are essential degrees of freedom in nuclear systems, and the relevant studies on their properties play important roles not only in nuclear physics but also in nuclear astrophysics, particle physics, and so on. In this presentation for the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize 2016, I would like to introduce the microscopic studies on nuclear spin-isospin properties in the framework of covariant density functional theory (DFT), by taking a few works that I have been joining in as examples. It is seen that the covariant scheme plays an important role in describing the spin properties in a…
Open problems in the interpretation of the observed pair of near degenerate $ΔI = 1$ bands with the same parity as the chiral doublet bands are discussed. The ambiguities for the existing fingerprints of the chirality in atomic nuclei and problems in existing theory are discussed, including the description of quantum tunneling in the mean field approximation as well as the deformation, core polarization and configuration of particle rotor model (PRM). Future developments of the theoretical approach are prospected.
Magnetic rotation and antimagnetic rotation are exotic rotational phenomena observed in weakly deformed or near-spherical nuclei, which are respectivelyinterpreted in terms of the shears mecha-nism and two shearslike mechanism. Since their observations, magnetic rotation and antimagnetic rotation phenomena have been mainly investigated in the framework of tilted axis cranking based on the pairing plus quadrupole model. For the last decades, the covariant density functional theory and its extension have been proved to be successful in describing series of nuclear ground-states and excited state…
Using relativistic Hartree-Fock (RHF) approximation, we study the effect of Fock terms on the nuclear properties not only around the saturation density, $ρ_{0}$, but also at higher densities. In particular, we investigate how the momentum dependence due to the exchange contribution affects the nuclear symmetry energy and its slope parameter, using the Lorentz-covariant decomposition of nucleon self-energies in an extended version of the RHF model, in which the exchange terms are adjusted so as to reproduce the single-nucleon potential at $ρ_{0}$. We find that the Fock contribution suppresses t…
The intrinsic nuclear shapes deviating from a sphere not only manifest themselves in nuclear collective states but also play important roles in determining nuclear potential energy surfaces (PES's) and fission barriers. In order to describe microscopically and self-consistently nuclear shapes and PES's with as many shape degrees of freedom as possible included, we developed multidimensionally-constrained covariant density functional theories (MDC-CDFTs). In MDC-CDFTs, the axial symmetry and the reflection symmetry are both broken and all deformations characterized by $β_{λμ}$ with even $μ$ are…
The covariant density functional theory with a few number of parameters has been widely used to describe the ground-state and excited-state properties for the nuclei all over the nuclear chart. In order to describe exotic properties of unstable nuclei, the contribution of the continuum and its coupling with bound states should be treated properly. In this Topical Review, the development of the covariant density functional theory in continuum will be introduced, including the relativistic continuum Hartree-Bogoliubov theory, the relativistic Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory in continuum, and the …
The relativistic local density approximation (LDA) for the Coulomb exchange functional in nuclear systems is presented. This approximation is composed of the well-known Slater approximation in the non-relativistic scheme and the corrections due to the relativistic effects. Its validity in finite nuclei is examined by comparing with the exact treatment of the Coulomb exchange term in the relativistic Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory. The relativistic effects are found to be important and the exact Coulomb exchange energies can be reproduced by the relativistic LDA within 5% demonstrated by the se…
The nuclear magnetic moment is an important physical observable and serves as a useful tool for the stringent test of nuclear models. For the past decades, the covariant density functional theory and its extension have been proved to be successful in describing the nuclear ground-states and excited states properties. However, a long-standing problem is its failure to predict magnetic moments. This article reviews the recent progress in the description of the nuclear magnetic moments within the covariant density functional theory. In particular, the magnetic moments of spherical odd-A nuclei wi…
Using the Hugenholtz-Van Hove theorem, we derive analytical expressions for the nuclear symmetry energy $E_{sym}(ρ)$ and its density slope $L(ρ)$ in terms of the Lorentz covariant nucleon self-energies in isospin asymmetric nuclear matter. These general expressions are useful for determining the density dependence of the symmetry energy and understanding the Lorentz structure and the microscopic origin of the nuclear symmetry energy in relativistic covariant formulism. As an example, we analyze the Lorentz covariant nucleon self-energy decomposition of $E_{sym}(ρ)$ and $L(ρ)$ and derive the co…
The origin of the nuclear tensor interaction in the covariant energy density functional (EDF) is presented in this work, associated with the Fock diagrams of Lorentz scalar and vector couplings. With this newly obtained relativistic formalism of the nuclear tensor interaction, more distinct tensor effects are found in the Fock diagrams of the Lorentz scalar and vector couplings, as compared to the Lorentz pseudo-vector and tensor channels. A unified and self-consistent treatment on both the nuclear tensor and spin-orbit interactions, which dominate the spin-dependent features of the nuclear fo…
In most of the successful versions of covariant density functional theory in nuclei, the Fock terms are not included explicitly, which leads to local functionals and forms the basis of their widespread applicability at present. However, it has serious consequences for the description of Gamow-Teller resonances (GTR) and spin-dipole resonances (SDR) which can only be cured by adding further phenomenological parameters. Relativistic Hartree-Fock models do not suffer from these problems. They can successfully describe the GTR and SDR as well as the isovector part of the Dirac effective mass witho…
The assessment of the global performance of the state-of-the-art covariant energy density functionals and related theoretical uncertainties in the description of ground state observables has recently been performed. Based on these results, the correlations between global description of binding energies and nuclear matter properties of covariant energy density functionals have been studied in this contribution.
We investigate effects of nuclear medium on antiquark distribution in nuclei applying the results of a recently developed relativistically-covariant self-consistent model for the pion and the isobar. We take into account Fermi motion including Pauli blocking and binding effects on the nucleons and medium effects on the isobar and pion leading to modest enhancement of the pion light-cone-momentum distribution in large nuclei. As a consequence the Drell-Yan cross-section ratio with respect to the deuteron exceeds one only for small values of the light-cone momentum.
We evaluate the pion and isobar propagators in cold nuclear matter self consistently applying a covariant form of the isobar-hole model. Migdal's vertex correction effects are considered systematically in the absence of phenomenological soft form factors. Saturated nuclear matter is modeled by scalar and vector mean fields for the nucleon. It is shown that the short-range dressing of the pi N Delta vertex has a significant effect on the pion and isobar properties. Using realistic parameters sets we predict a downward shift of about 50 MeV for the Delta resonance at nuclear saturation density. …
The current status of the application of covariant density functional theory to microscopic description of nuclear fission with main emphasis on superheavy nuclei (SHN) is reviewed. The softness of SHN in the triaxial plane leads to an emergence of several competing fission pathes in the region of the inner fission barrier in some of these nuclei. The outer fission barriers of SHN are considerably affected both by triaxiality and octupole deformation.
We investigate nuclear matter properties in the relativistic Brueckner approach. The in-medium on-shell T-matrix is represented covariantly by five Lorentz invariant amplitudes from which we deduce directly the nucleon self-energy. We discuss the ambiguities of this approach and the failure of previously used covariant representations in reproducing the nucleon self-energies on the Hartree-Fock level. To enforce correct Hartree-Fock results we develop a subtraction scheme which treats the bare nucleon-nucleon potential exactly in accordance to the different types of meson exchanges. For the re…
A formalism for representing the fully relativistic propagator of the Rarita-Schwinger field in the nuclear medium is developed. Using a convenient basis for expanding the propagator, or the self energy, it is shown that they can be represented by 40 energy and momentum dependent quantities which can be combined into a 2x2 and a 6x6 matrix. In this way calculations reduce to matrix multiplication. Using the presented formalism the full relativistically covariant contribution of the pion-nucleon loop to the isobar self energy and propagator in isospin-symmetric spin-saturated nuclear medium is …
A new parametrization PC-PK1 for the nuclear covariant energy density functional with nonlinear point-coupling interaction is proposed by fitting to observables for 60 selected spherical nuclei, including the binding energies, charge radii and empirical pairing gaps. The success of PC-PK1 is illustrated in its description for infinite nuclear matter and finite nuclei including the ground-state and low-lying excited states. Particularly, PC-PK1 improves the description for isospin dependence of binding energy along either the isotopic or the isotonic chains, which makes it more reliable for app…
Background: Nuclear excited states within a wide range of excitation energies are formally described by the linear response theory. Besides its conventional formulation within the quasiparticle random phase approximation (QRPA) representing excited states as two correlated quasiparticles (2q), there exist extensions for 4q configurations. Such extended approaches are quite successful in the description of gross properties of nuclear spectra, however, accounting for many of their fine features requires further extension of the configuration space. Purpose: This work aims at the development of a…
We evaluate the in-medium spectral functions for pions, nucleon and isobar resonances in a self consistent and covariant manner. The calculations are based on a recently developed formulation which leads to predictions in terms of the pion-nucleon scattering phase shifts and a set of Migdal parameters describing important short range correlation effects. We do not observe significant softening of pion modes if we insist on reasonable isobar resonance properties but predict a considerable broadening of the N(1440) and N(1520) resonances in nuclear matter. Contrasted results are obtained for the…
Self-consistent proton-neutron quasiparticle random phase approximation based on the spherical nonlinear point-coupling relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory is established and used to investigate the $β^+$/EC-decay half-lives of neutron-deficient Ar, Ca, Ti, Fe, Ni, Zn, Cd, and Sn isotopes. The isoscalar proton-neutron pairing is found to play an important role in reducing the decay half-lives, which is consistent with the same mechanism in the $β$ decays of neutron-rich nuclei. The experimental $β^+$/EC-decay half-lives can be well reproduced by a universal isoscalar proton-neutron pairing …
Excitations of chiral rotation observed in triaxial nuclei and magnetic and/or antimagnetic rotations seen in near-spherical nuclei have attracted a lot of attention. Unlike conventional rotation in well-deformed or superdeformed nuclei, here the rotational axis is not necessary coinciding with any principal axis of the nuclear density distribution. Thus, tilted axis cranking is mandatory to describe these excitations self-consistently in the framework of covariant density functional theory (CDFT). We will briefly introduce the formalism of tilted axis cranking CDFT and its application for mag…
The isospin coupling-channel decomposition of the potential energy density functional is carried out within the covariant density functional theory, and their isospin and density dependence in particular the influence on the symmetry energy is studied. It is found that both isospin-singlet and isospin-triplet components of the potential energy play the dominant role in deciding the symmetry energy, especially when the Fock diagram is introduced. The results illustrate a quite different mechanism to the origin of the symmetry energy from the microscopic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory, and demons…
A new density-dependent point-coupling covariant density functional PCF-PK1 is proposed, where the exchange terms of the four-fermion terms are local and are taken into account with the Fierz transformation. The coupling constants of the PCF-PK1 functional are determined by empirical saturation properties and ab initio equation of state and proton-neutron Dirac mass splittings for nuclear matter as well as the ground-state properties of selected spherical nuclei. The success of the PCF-PK1 is illustrated with properties of the infinite nuclear matter and finite nuclei including the ground-stat…
Background: The study of additional terms in functionals is relevant to better describe nuclear structure phenomenology. Among these terms, the tensor one is known to impact nuclear structure properties, especially in neutron-rich nuclei. However, its effect has not been studied on the whole nuclear chart yet. Purpose: The impact of terms corresponding to the tensor at the Hartree level, is studied for infinite nuclear matter as well as deformed nuclei, by developing new density-dependent functionals including these terms. In particular, we study in details the improvement such a term can brin…
Guiding by the relativistic local density approximation, we explore a phenomenological formula for the coupling strength of Coulomb field to take into account the Coulomb exchange term effectively in the relativistic Hartree approximation. Its validity in finite nuclei is examined by comparing with the exact treatment of the Coulomb exchange energies in the relativistic Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approach. It is found that the exact Coulomb exchange energies can be reproduced by employing the phenomenological formula with the relative deviations less than 1% for semi-magic Ca, Ni, Sn, and Pb isot…
Considering the effects of charge screening, we propose a new numerical recipe within the framework of Thomas-Fermi approximation, where the properties of nuclear matter throughout a vast density range can be obtained self-consistently. Assuming spherical and cylindrical approximations for the Wigner-Seitz cell, typical nuclear matter structures (droplet, rod, slab, tube, bubble, and uniform) are observed. We then investigate the EOSs and microscopic structures of nuclear matter with both fixed proton fractions and $β$-equilibration, where two covariant density functionals DD-LZ1 and DD-ME2 ar…
The nuclear landscape has been investigated within the triaxial relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory with the PC-PK1 density functional, and the beyond-mean-field dynamical correlation energies are taken into account by a microscopically mapped five-dimensional collective Hamiltonian without additional free parameters. The effects of triaxial deformation and dynamical correlations on the nuclear landscape are analyzed. The present results provide the best description of the experimental binding energies, in particular for medium and heavy mass regions, in comparison with the results obtained…
Based on the Hugenholtz-Van Hove theorem, the symmetry energy $J$ and its density slope parameter $L$ are decomposed in terms of the nucleon self-energies within the covariant density functional (CDF) theory. It is found that two structural connections between the different ingredients of $J$ and $L$ construct the fundamental correlation between $L$ and $J$ in the relativistic covariant framework, while the additional contribution from the isovector scalar channel of nucleon-nucleon interaction and those from the second-order symmetry self-energies lead to a deviation, especially the latter li…
Construction of Nuclear Covariant Energy Density Functional from A Physics-Guaranteed Neural Network Approach
School of Physics, Anhui University（安徽大学物理学院）；Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学理学研究科物理学系）；Quark Nuclear Science Institute, The University of Tokyo（东京大学夸克核科学研究所）；RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS)（理化学所跨学科理论与数学科学中心(iTHEMS)）；School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学物理与天文学院）；School of Physics and Nuclear Energy Engineering, Beihang University（北京航空航天大学物理与能源工程学院）
The correlations between global description of the ground state properties (binding energies, charge radii) and nuclear matter properties of the state-of-the-art covariant energy density functionals have been studied. It was concluded that the strict enforcement of the constraints on the nuclear matter properties (NMP) defined in Ref.\ \cite{RMF-nm} will not necessary lead to the functionals with good description of the binding energies and other ground and excited state properties. In addition, it will not substantially reduce the uncertainties in the predictions of the binding energies in ne…
Nuclear structure models built from phenomenological mean fields, the effective nucleon-nucleon interactions (or Lagrangians), and the realistic bare nucleon-nucleon interactions are reviewed. The success of covariant density functional theory (CDFT) to describe nuclear properties and its influence on Brueckner theory within the relativistic framework are focused upon. The challenges and ambiguities of predictions for unstable nuclei without data or for high-density nuclear matter, arising from relativistic density functionals, are discussed. The basic ideas in building an ab initio relativist…
The neutron and proton drip lines represent the limits of the nuclear landscape. While the proton drip line is measured experimentally up to rather high $Z$-values, the location of the neutron drip line for absolute majority of elements is based on theoretical predictions which involve extreme extrapolations. The first ever systematic investigation of the location of the proton and neutron drip lines in the covariant density functional theory has been performed by employing a set of the state-of-the-art parametrizations. Calculated theoretical uncertainties in the position of two-neutron drip …
How does subatomic matter organize itself? Neutron stars are cosmic laboratories uniquely poised to answer this fundamental question that lies at the heart of nuclear science. Newly commissioned rare isotope facilities, telescopes operating across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and ever more sensitive gravitational wave detectors will probe the properties of neutron-rich matter with unprecedented precision over an enormous range of densities. Yet, a coordinated effort between observation, experiment, and theoretical research is of paramount importance for realizing the full potential of …
We report a systematic study of nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) in neutrinoless double-beta decays with a state-of-the-art beyond mean-field covariant density functional theory. The dynamic effects of particle-number and angular-momentum conservations as well as quadrupole shape fluctuations are taken into account with projections and generator coordinate method for both initial and final nuclei. The full relativistic transition operator is adopted to calculate the NMEs. The present systematic studies show that in most of the cases there is a much better agreement with the previous non-relativi…
The odd-even staggerings (OES) on nuclear binding energies are studied systematically within the covariant density functional (CDF) theories, specifically the relativistic Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (RHFB) and the relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) theories. Taking the finite-range Gogny force D1S as an effective pairing interaction, both CDF models can provide appropriate descriptions on the OESs of nuclear binding energies for C, O, Ca, Ni, Zr, Sn, Ce, Gd and Pb isotopes as well as for N=50 and 82 isotones. However, due to the inconsistence between the non-relativistic pairing interaction an…
The current investigation aims to study the ground-state properties of one of the most interesting isotopic chains in the periodic table, 94-168Sn, from the proton drip line to the neutron drip line by using the covariant density functional theory, which is a modern theoretical tool for the description of nuclear structure phenomena. The physical observables of interest include the binding energy, separation energy, two-neutron shell gap, rms-radii for protons and neutrons, pairing energy and quadrupole deformation. The calculations are performed for a wide range of neutron numbers, starting f…
Statistical uncertainty quantification for multireference covariant density functional theory
School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学物理学院）；Department of Physics, Kyoto University（京都大学物理系）；Graduate School of China Academy of Engineering Physics（中国工程物理研究院研究生院）；Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University（京都大学汤川理论物理研究所）
Nuclear masses of even-even nuclei with the proton number $8\leq Z\leq 50$ (O to Sn isotopes) from proton drip line to neutron drip line are investigated using the triaxial relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) theory with the relativistic density functional PC-PK1, and the dynamical correlation energies (DCEs) associated with the rotational motion and the quadrupole shape vibrational motion are taken into account by the five-dimensional collective Hamiltonian (5DCH) method. The root-mean-square deviation with respect to the experimental masses reduces from 2.50 MeV to 1.59 MeV after the consi…
Although one-loop calculations provide a realistic description of bulk and single-particle nuclear properties, it is necessary to examine loop corrections to develop a systematic finite-density power-counting scheme for the nuclear many-body problem when loops are included. Moreover, it is imperative to study exchange and correlation corrections systematically to make reliable predictions for other nuclear observables. One must also verify that the natural sizes of the one-loop parameters are not destroyed by explicit inclusion of many-body corrections. The loop expansion is applied to a chira…
Recent progress in Lorentz-covariant quantum field theories of the nuclear many-body problem (quantum hadrodynamics or QHD) is discussed. The effective field theory studied here contains nucleons, pions, isoscalar scalar (σ) and vector (ω) fields, and isovector vector (ρ) fields. The theory exhibits a nonlinear realization of spontaneously broken SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R chiral symmetry and has three desirable features: it uses the same degrees of freedom to describe the nuclear currents and the strong-interaction dynamics, it satisfies the symmetries of the underlying theory of QCD, and its par…
The impact of particle-vibration coupling and polarization effects due to deformation and time-odd mean fields on single-particle spectra is studied systematically in doubly magic nuclei from low mass $^{56}$Ni up to superheavy ones. Particle-vibration coupling is treated fully self-consistently within the framework of relativistic particle-vibration coupling model. Polarization effects due to deformation and time-odd mean field induced by odd particle are computed within covariant density functional theory. It has been found that among these contributions the coupling to vibrations makes a ma…
