No Arabic abstract
The impact of beyond mean field effects on the ground state and fission properties of superheavy nuclei has been investigated in a five-dimensional collective Hamiltonian based on covariant density functional theory. The inclusion of dynamical correlations reduces the impact of the $Z=120$ shell closure and induces substantial collectivity for the majority of the $Z=120$ nuclei which otherwise are spherical at the mean field level (as seen in the calculations with the PC-PK1 functional). Thus, they lead to a substantial convergence of the predictions of the functionals DD-PC1 and PC-PK1 which are different at the mean field level. On the contrary, the predictions of these two functionals remain distinctly different for the $N=184$ nuclei even when dynamical correlations are included. These nuclei are mostly spherical (oblate) in the calculations with PC-PK1 (DD-PC1). Our calculations for the first time reveal significant impact of dynamical correlations on the heights of inner fission barriers of superheavy nuclei with soft potential energy surfaces, the minimum of which at the mean field level is located at spherical shape. These correlations affect the fission barriers of the nuclei, which are deformed in the ground state at the mean field level, to a lesser degree.
With a help of the selfconsistent Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) approach with the D1S effective Gogny interaction and the Generator Coordinate Method (GCM) we incorporate the transverse collective vibrations to the one-dimensional model of the fission-barrier penetrability based on the traditional WKB method. The average fission barrier corresponding to the least-energy path in the two-dimensional potential energy landscape as function of quadrupole and octupole degrees of freedom is modified by the influence of the transverse collective vibrations along the nuclear path to fission. The set of transverse vibrational states built in the fission valley corresponding to a successively increasing nuclear elongation produces the new energy barrier which is compared with the least-energy barrier. These collective states are given as the eigensolutions of the GCM purely vibrational Hamiltonian. In addition, the influence of the collective inertia on the fission properties is displayed, and it turns out to be the decisive condition for the possible transitions between different fission valleys.
The systematic investigation of the ground state and fission properties of even-even actinides and superheavy nuclei with $Z=90-120$ from the two-proton up to two-neutron drip lines with proper assessment of systematic theoretical uncertainties has been performed for the first time in the framework of covariant density functional theory (CDFT). These results provide a necessary theoretical input for the r-process modeling in heavy nuclei and, in particular, for the study of fission recycling. Four state-of-the-art globally tested covariant energy density functionals (CEDFs), namely, DD-PC1, DD-ME2, NL3* and PC-PK1, representing the major classes of the CDFT models are employed in the present study. Ground state deformations, binding energies, two neutron separation energies, $alpha$-decay $Q_{alpha}$ values and half-lives and the heights of fission barriers have been calculated for all these nuclei. Theoretical uncertainties in these physical observables and their evolution as a function of proton and neutron numbers have been quantified and their major sources have been identified. Spherical shell closures at $Z=120$, $N=184$ and $N=258$ and the structure of the single-particle (especially, high-$j$) states in their vicinities as well as nuclear matter properties of employed CEDFs are two major factors contributing into theoretical uncertainties. However, different physical observables are affected in a different way by these two factors. For example, theoretical uncertainties in calculated ground state deformations are affected mostly by former factor, while theoretical uncertainties in fission barriers depend on both of these factors.
The framework of relativistic energy density functionals is extended to include correlations related to restoration of broken symmetries and fluctuations of collective variables. A new implementation is developed for the solution of the eigenvalue problem of a five-dimensional collective Hamiltonian for quadrupole vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom, with parameters determined by constrained self-consistent relativistic mean-field calculations for triaxial shapes. The model is tested in a series of illustrative calculations of potential energy surfaces and the resulting collective excitation spectra and transition probabilities of the chain of even-even gadolinium isotopes.
Using the microscopic-macroscopic model based on the deformed Woods-Saxon single-particle potential and the Yukawa-plus-exponential macroscopic energy we calculated static fission barriers $B_{f}$ for 1305 heavy and superheavy nuclei $98leq Z leq 126$, including even - even, odd - even, even - odd and odd - odd systems. For odd and odd-odd nuclei, adiabatic potential energy surfaces were calculated by a minimization over configurations with one blocked neutron or/and proton on a level from the 10-th below to the 10-th above the Fermi level. The parameters of the model that have been fixed previously by a fit to masses of even-even heavy nuclei were kept unchanged. A search for saddle points has been performed by the Imaginary Water Flow method on a basic five-dimensional deformation grid, including triaxiality. Two auxiliary grids were used for checking the effects of the mass asymmetry and hexadecapole non-axiallity. The ground states were found by energy minimization over configurations and deformations. We find that the non-axiallity significantly changes first and second fission barrier in many nuclei. The effect of the mass - asymmetry, known to lower the second, very deformed barriers in actinides, in the heaviest nuclei appears at the less deformed saddles in more than 100 nuclei. It happens for those saddles in which the triaxiallity does not play any role, what suggests a decoupling between effects of the mass-asymmetry and triaxiality. We studied also the influence of the pairing interaction strength on the staggering of $B_f$ for odd- and even-particle numbers. Finally, we provide a comparison of our results with other theoretical fission barrier evaluations and with available experimental estimates.
Ground-state properties of exotic even-even nuclei with extreme neutron-to-proton ratios are described in the framework of the self-consistent mean-field theory with pairing formulated in coordinate space. This theory properly accounts for the influence of the particle continuum, which is particularly important for weakly bound systems. The pairing properties of nuclei far from stability are studied with several interactions emphasizing different aspects, such as the range and density dependence of the effective interaction. Measurable consequences of spatially extended pairing fields are presented, and the sensitivity of the theoretical predictions to model details is discussed.