The anomalies of the droplet model

Abstract

The droplet model predictions for nuclear density distributions are systematically compared with the results of a self-consistent model with Strutinsky smoothing. The discrepancies between the two predictions for stable nuclei are as large as the discrepancies between the old liquid drop model and the self-consistent one: although the droplet model reproduces quite well the trends of the variations of nuclear radii and neutron skins, it is not able to predict correctly their values. A preliminary discussion is given as to which hypothesis of the droplet model should be modified to generalise it, and two possible variants are suggested.