Pairing effects on pure rotational energy of nuclei

By applying the angular-momentum projection to the self-consistent axial mean-field solutions with the semi-realistic effective Hamiltonian M3Y-P6, the pairing effects on the pure rotational energy of nuclei, i.e. the rotational energy at a fixed intrinsic state, have been investigated. While it was shown at the Hartree–Fock (HF) level that the individual terms of the Hamiltonian contribute to the rotational energy with ratios insensitive to nuclides except for light or weakly-deformed nuclei, the pair correlations significantly change the contributions, even for the well-deformed heavy nuclei. The contribution of the interaction to the rotational energy is found to correlate well with the degree of proximity between nucleons, which is measured via the expectation value that two nucleons exist at the same position. While the nucleons slightly spread as the angular momentum increases at the HF level, accounting for the positive (negative) contribution of the attractive (repulsive) components of the interaction, the pair correlations reduce or invert the effect.