Nuclei embedded in an electron gas

Abstract

The properties of nuclei embedded in an electron gas are studied within the relativistic mean-field approach. These studies are relevant for nuclear properties in astrophysical environments such as neutron-star crusts and supernova explosions. The electron gas is treated as a constant background in the Wigner-Seitz cell approximation. We investigate the stability of nuclei with respect to alpha and beta decay. Furthermore, the influence of the electronic background on spontaneous fission of heavy and superheavy nuclei is analyzed. We find that the presence of the electrons leads to stabilizing effects for both $\alpha$ decay and spontaneous fission for high electron densities. Furthermore, the screening effect shifts the proton dripline to more proton-rich nuclei, and the stability line with respect to beta decay is shifted to more neutron-rich nuclei. Implications for the creation and survival of very heavy nuclear systems are discussed.

35 pages, latex+eps

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Physics of Neutron Star Crusts
• Statistical Model for a Complete Supernova Equation of State
• Formation of Nuclear "Pasta" in Supernovae
• Statistical approach for supernova matter
• On the relativistic Thomas-Fermi treatment of compressed atoms and compressed nuclear matter cores of stellar dimensions
• Anisotropic pressure and hyperons in neutron stars
• Inner crusts of neutron stars in strongly quantising magnetic fields
• Molecular Dynamics for Dense Matter
• Strong electric fields induced on a sharp stellar boundary
• Nuclear structure calculations for neutron-star crusts
• Skyrme-Hartree-Fock calculations of nuclear properties in the drip-point region of neutron star crust