Low-lying nuclear states of Sm isotopes are studied in the framework of a collective Hamiltonian based on covariant energy density functional theory. Pairing correlation are treated by both BCS and Bogoliubov methods. It is found that the pairing cor
relations deduced from relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) calculations are generally stronger than those by relativistic mean-field plus BCS (RMF+BCS) with same pairing force. By simply renormalizing the pairing strength, the diagonal part of the pairing field is changed in such a way that the essential effects of the off-diagonal parts of the pairing field neglected in the RMF+BCS calculations can be recovered, and consequently the low-energy structure is in a good agreement with the predictions of the RHB model.
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 pr
oblem 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.
We present the first study to examine the validity of the relativistic impulse approximation (RIA) for describing elastic proton-nucleus scattering at incident laboratory kinetic energies lower than 200 MeV. For simplicity we choose a $^{208}$Pb targ
et, which is a spin-saturated spherical nucleus for which reliable nuclear structure models exist. Microscopic scalar and vector optical potentials are generated by folding invariant scalar and vector scattering nucleon-nucleon (NN) amplitudes, based on our recently developed relativistic meson-exchange model, with Lorentz scalar and vector densities resulting from the accurately calibrated PK1 relativistic mean field model of nuclear structure. It is seen that phenomenological Pauli blocking (PB) effects and density-dependent corrections to $sigma$N and $omega$N meson-nucleon coupling constants modify the RIA microscopic scalar and vector optical potentials so as to provide a consistent and quantitative description of all elastic scattering observables, namely total reaction cross sections, differential cross sections, analyzing powers and spin rotation functions. In particular, the effect of PB becomes more significant at energies lower than 200 MeV, whereas phenomenological density-dependent corrections to the NN interaction {it also} play an increasingly important role at energies lower than 100 MeV.
