Implications of parity-violating electron scattering experiments on 48Ca (CREX) and 208Pb (PREX-II) for nuclear energy density functionals

Abstract

Recent precise parity-violating electron scattering experiments on 48Ca (CREX) and 208Pb (PREX-II) provide a new insight on the formation of neutron skin in nuclei. Within the energy density functional (EDF) framework, we investigate the implications of CREX and PREX-II data on nuclear matter symmetry energy and isovector properties of finite nuclei: neutron skin thickness and dipole polarizability. The weak-charge form factors from the CREX and PREX-II experiments are employed directly in constraining the relativistic density-dependent point coupling EDFs. The EDF established with the CREX data acquires considerably smaller values of the symmetry energy parameters, neutron skin thickness and dipole polarizability both for 48Ca and 208Pb, in comparison to the EDF obtained using the PREX-II data, and previously established EDFs. Presented analysis shows that CREX and PREX-II experiments could not provide consistent constraints for the isovector sector of the EDFs, and further theoretical and experimental studies are required.