Shell structure and the fluctuation of the nuclear density distribution

Abstract

We investigate the relation between the density-fluctuations in nuclei and their description by single-particle models, i.e. the shell model and the Hartree-Fock method; the question is whether every shell-structure necessarily leads to those fluctuations. We demonstrate the flexibility of the single-particle models by constructing a shell-model potential and an effective Hartree-Fock potential, respectively, which produce completely flat distributions without any density fluctuation; this means that “shell structure” is not sufficient an explanation for the fluctuations. Only the additional requirement that the dynamical features of nuclei are also met selects a subclass of “reasonable” potentials or forces which lead to the typical density-fluctuations.