Eur. Phys. J. A (2019) 55: 230
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2019-12918-8

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Nuclear excitations within microscopic EDF approaches: Pairing and temperature effects on the dipole response

¹ Department of Physics, Yildiz Technical University, 34220, Esenler, Istanbul, Turkey
² Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Celoria 16, I-20133, Milano, Italy
³ INFN, Sezione di Milano, Via Celoria 16, 20133, Milano, Italy
⁴ Institut de Physique Nucléaire, Université Paris-Sud, IN2P3-CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91406, Orsay Cedex, France
⁵ School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, China
⁶ ELI-NP, Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, 30 Reactorului Street, RO-077125, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania

^* e-mail: khan@ipno.in2p3.fr

Received: 15 March 2019
Accepted: 29 April 2019
Published online: 2 December 2019

Abstract

In the present work, the isovector dipole responses, both in the resonance region and in the low-energy sector, are investigated using the microscopic nuclear Energy Density Functionals (EDFs). The self-consistent QRPA model based on Skyrme Hartree Fock BCS approach is applied to study the evolution of the isovector dipole strength by increasing neutron number and temperature. First, the isovector dipole strength and excitation energies are investigated for the Ni isotopic chain at zero temperature. The evolution of the low-energy dipole strength is studied as a function of the neutron number. In the second part, the temperature dependence of the isovector dipole excitations is studied using the self-consistent finite temperature QRPA, below and above the critical temperatures. It is shown that new excited states become possible due to the thermally occupied states above the Fermi level, and opening of the new excitations channels. In addition, temperature leads to fragmentation of the low-energy strength around the neutron separation energies, and between 9 and 12 MeV. We find that the cumulative sum of the strength below MeV decreases in open-shell nuclei due to the vanishing of the pairing correlations as temperature increases up to MeV. The analysis of the transition densities in the low-energy region shows that the proton and neutron transition densities display a mixed pattern: both isoscalar and isovector motion of protons and neutrons are obtained inside nuclei, while the neutron transition density is dominant at the surface region.