Breaking and restoring symmetries within the nuclear energy density functional method

T Duguet (1, 2) , J Sadoudi (1)

1 DPHN - Département de Physique Nucléaire (ex SPhN)
2 Department of Physics and Astronomy [East Lansing]

We review the notion of symmetry breaking and restoration within the frame of nuclear energy density functional methods. We focus on key differences between wave-function- and energy-functional-based methods. In particular, we point to difficulties to formulate the restoration of symmetries within the energy functional framework. The problems tackled recently in connection with particle-number restoration serve as a baseline to the present discussion. Reaching out to angular-momentum restoration, we identify an exact mathematical property of the energy density E LM (R) that could be used to constrain energy density functional kernels. Consequently, we suggest possible routes towards a better formulation of symmetry restorations within energy density functional methods.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

T Duguet, J Sadoudi. Breaking and restoring symmetries within the nuclear energy density functional method. Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, 2010, 37 (6), pp.64009. ⟨10.1088/0954-3899/37/6/064009⟩. ⟨hal-00630016⟩