Energy density functional for nuclei and the current status of the equation of state of nuclear matter

Abstract

We review the current status of the equation of state (EOS) of symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter (NM), as deduced from theoretical and experimental studies of structure of nuclei. We first describe a method, based on the simulated annealing approach, for determining a modern energy density functional within the Skyrme Hartree-Fock (HF) theory by carrying out a fit to extensive set of experimental data and further include constraints on the Skyrme parameters. We then present results of calculations for the excitation strength functions and centroid energies of giant resonances within the HF-based random phase approximation and discuss the current status of the NM incompressibility coefficient and the symmetry energy density, the needed ingredients for the EOS of NM.