Measurements of atomic transitions in different isotopes offer key information on the nuclear charge radius. The anticipated high-precision experimental techniques, augmented by atomic calculations, will soon enable extraction of the higher order radial moments of the charge density distribution. To assess the value of such measurements for nuclear structure research, we study the information content of the fourth radial moment $\langle r^4\rangle$ by means of nuclear density functional theory and a multiple correlation analysis. We show that $\langle r^4\rangle$ can be directly related to the surface thickness of nuclear density, a fundamental property of the atomic nucleus that is difficult to obtain for radioactive systems. Precise knowledge of these radial moments is essential to establish reliable constraints on the existence of new forces from precision isotope shift measurements.

• Received 24 September 2019
• Revised 19 November 2019
• Accepted 23 January 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.101.021301

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society