Abstract
The development of systematic effective field theories (EFTs) for nuclear forces and advances in solving the nuclear many-body problem have greatly improved our understanding of dense nuclear matter and the structure of finite nuclei. For global nuclear calculations, density functional theories (DFTs) have been developed to reduce the complexity and computational cost required in describing nuclear systems. However, DFT often makes approximations and assumptions about terms included in the functional, which may introduce systematic uncertainties compared to microscopic calculations using EFTs. In this work, we investigate possible avenues of improving nuclear DFT using nonlinear relativistic mean-field (RMF) theory. We explore the impact of RMF model extensions by fitting the nonlinear RMF model to predictions of nuclear matter and selected closed-shell nuclei using four successful chiral EFT Hamiltonians. We find that these model extensions are impactful and important in capturing the physics present within chiral Hamiltonians, particularly for charge radii and neutron skins of closed-shell nuclei. However, there are additional effects that are not captured within the RMF model, particularly within the isoscalar sector of RMF theory. Additional model extensions and the reliability of the nonlinear RMF model are discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-17 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Physical Review C |
| Volume | 112 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 25 2025 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan [132]. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract No. 89233218CNA000001). This work was also supported in part by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 101020842), by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) NUCLEI program, by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Los Alamos National Laboratory under project nos. 20230315ER and 20230785PRD1, and by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy, and by the European Union under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 101152722. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. [131] for funding this project by providing computing time through the John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC) on the GCS Supercomputer JUWELS at Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC). We would like to thank Marc Salinas for providing notes on the implementation of the tensor couplings and helpful discussions about possible model extensions. We would also like to thank Chuck Horowitz and Jorge Piekarewicz for valuable discussions and insight for this work. This work benefited from useful discussions at the Neutron Rich Matter on Heaven and Earth (22r-2a) workshop at the Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington, Seattle. This work also benefited from discussions at the Third Frontiers in Nuclear Astrophysics Summer School at Ohio University, supported by IReNA under National Science Foundation Grant No. OISE-1927130. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract No. 89233218CNA000001). This work was also supported in part by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 101020842), by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) NUCLEI program, by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Los Alamos National Laboratory under project nos. 20230315ER and 20230785PRD1, and by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy, and by the European Union under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 101152722. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. [131] for funding this project by providing computing time through the John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC) on the GCS Supercomputer JUWELS at Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC).