Temperature dependence of nuclear properties: A systematic study along the isotopic and isotonic chains of nuclei

Abstract

In this work, we study the changes in the nuclear properties by performing systematic calculations on the selected isotopic and isotonic chains of nuclei with increasing temperature. The finite temperature Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov (FT-HFB) calculations are performed using the Skyrme-type SkM* functional and mixed-type pairing interaction. The changes in the pairing properties, internal excitation energies, entropy, two-neutron separation energies, and neutron skin thickness of nuclei are systematically studied. It is shown that both the internal excitation energy and entropy are sensitive to the changes in the pairing properties of nuclei below the critical temperatures. At high temperatures and after T≥1 MeV, both of them increase rapidly. The nuclei near the neutron drip lines are affected more by the temperature effects since the continuum effects start to become dominant around these regions. On the other hand, the internal energy and entropy are not sensitive to the increase in the proton number, and the changes remain almost stable along an isotonic chain with increasing temperature. We also found that some nuclei near the neutron drip lines become bound at finite temperatures, whereas they are unstable against the two-neutron emission (S2n≤0 MeV). Investigation of the neutron skin thickness of nuclei shows that the temperature has a big impact on nuclei close to the neutron drip lines, and it considerably increases the neutron skin thickness of these nuclei at high temperatures.