INFORMATION ENTROPY AS A MEASURE OF THE QUALITY OF A NUCLEAR DENSITY DISTRIBUTION

The information entropy of a nuclear density distribution is calculate d for a number of nuclei. Various phenomenological models for the dens ity distribution using different geometries are employed. Nuclear dens ities calculated within various microscopic mean field approaches are also employed. It turns out that the entropy increases from crude phen omenological models to more sophisticated (microscopic) ones. It is co ncluded that the larger the information entropy, the better the qualit y of the nuclear density distribution. An alternative approach is also examined: the net information content, i.e. the sum of information en tropies in position and momentum space S-r + S-k. It is indicated that S-r + S-k is a maximum, when the best fit to experimental data of the density and momentum distributions is attained.