Effects of finite nucleon size, vacuum polarization, and electromagnetic spin-orbit interaction on nuclear binding energies and radii in spherical nuclei

Abstract

The finite-light-speed correction to the Coulomb interaction called the Breit correction is discussed with Skyrme Hartree-Fock calculations. It is found that the correction to the total energy is about 800 keV for 208 Pb, while proton and neutron radii do not change significantly. Effects of the Breit correction are also compared to the correction due to the vacuum polarization. It is shown that the two contributions to the total energy are comparable in light nuclei, but the latter dominates in heavy nuclei. Since the covariant (relativistic) density functional theory often includes effects of magnetic interaction and retardation for electromagnetic interaction, the method presented in this work enables one to make a fair comparison between the nonrelativistic and the relativistic density functional calculations for electromagnetic energies.

Toward ab initio charge symmetry breaking in nuclear energy density functionals

“…Thus, in this Letter, we choose τ 1z τ 2z for the CIB interaction. Accordingly, the CSB and CIB energy densities are derived as [42,64]…”

Second and fourth moments of the charge density and neutron-skin thickness of atomic nuclei

“…An additional contribution may come from the vacuum polarization effect [79,83,84]. The effect to r 2 ch is extracted as the difference of r 2 ch calculated with and without the vacuum polarization.…”

“…The former changes ρp and accordingly, ρ ch , while the latter does not change any density distribution, but single-particle energies of electrons change. Here, we discuss the former [79,83,84]. The latter is usually discussed in the context of the laser spectroscopy [85,86].…”

“…The Skyrme Hartree-Fock calculation [91] is performed under the assumption of the spherical symmetry using a calculation code named skyrme_rpa [92]. The electric form factors of nucleons are considered selfconsistently [79].…”

“…To extract r 2 n from r 2 ch and r 4 ch , we will show that the key issue is how to accurately determine r 4 p . In this paper, we analyze the corresponding sensitivity by using one of the state-of-the-art Skyrme Hartree-Fock calculations that we developed in a series of works [77][78][79], where the finite-size effects of nucleons are implemented to the self-consistent steps of the calculation.…”