Relativistic mean-field study of light nuclei near drip line

Abstract

The relativistic mean field theory is applied to study some exotic properties of neutron rich nuclei as recently observed, namely, extension of the drip-line for $F$ nuclei from ${}^{29}F$ to ${}^{31}F$ and the appearence of a new shell closure at neutron number N=16. We find ${}^{31}F$ to be bound against one-neutron dripping but unbound only marginally for two neutron separation. The calculated functional dependence of one-neutron separation energy with neutron number for different values of $T_Z=(N-Z)/2$ signals a new shell closure at N=16 for neutron rich nuclei with $T_Z\ge 3$. This is further corroborated from the study of the deformation and the gap across the Fermi surface in these light nuclei.

15 pages of text and 11 figures