Relativistic Coulomb Excitation within the Time Dependent Superfluid Local Density Approximation

I. Stetcu, C. A. Bertulani, A. Bulgac, P. Magierski, and K. J. Roche

Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 012701 – Published 6 January 2015

Abstract

Within the framework of the unrestricted time-dependent density functional theory, we present for the first time an analysis of the relativistic Coulomb excitation of the heavy deformed open shell nucleus ${}^{238}U$ . The approach is based on the superfluid local density approximation formulated on a spatial lattice that can take into account coupling to the continuum, enabling self-consistent studies of superfluid dynamics of any nuclear shape. We compute the energy deposited in the target nucleus as a function of the impact parameter, finding it to be significantly larger than the estimate using the Goldhaber-Teller model. The isovector giant dipole resonance, the dipole pygmy resonance, and giant quadrupole modes are excited during the process. The one-body dissipation of collective dipole modes is shown to lead a damping width $Γ_{↓} \approx 0.4 MeV$ and the number of preequilibrium neutrons emitted has been quantified.

Received 11 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.012701

Authors & Affiliations

I. Stetcu¹, C. A. Bertulani², A. Bulgac³, P. Magierski^3,4, and K. J. Roche^3,5

¹Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
²Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A & M University-Commerce, Commerce, Texas 75429, USA
³Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1560, USA
⁴Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, ulica Koszykowa 75, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland
⁵Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352, USA