Abstract
Although nuclear energy-density functionals are determined primarily by fitting to ground-state properties, they are often applied in nuclear astrophysics to excited states, usually through the quasiparticle random-phase approximation (QRPA). Here we test the Skyrme functionals SkM and SLy4 along with the self-consistent QRPA by calculating properties of low-lying vibrational states in a large number of well-deformed even-even rare-earth nuclei. We reproduce trends in energies and transition probabilities associated with -vibrational states, but our results are not perfect and indicate the presence of multiparticle-hole correlations that are not included in the QRPA. The Skyrme functional SkM performs noticeably better than SLy4. In a few nuclei, changes in the treatment of the pairing energy functional have a significant effect. The QRPA is less successful with “-vibrational” states than with the -vibrational states.
3 More- Received 19 May 2011
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.84.014332
©2011 American Physical Society