Shell corrections of superheavy nuclei in self-consistent calculations - art. no. 034313

Shell corrections to the nuclear binding energy as a measure of shell effec ts in superheavy nuclei are studied within the self-consistent Skyrme-Hartr ee-Fock and relativistic mean-field theories. As a result of the presence o f a low-lying proton continuum resulting in a free particle gas, special at tention is paid to the treatment of the single-particle level density. To c ure the pathological behavior of the shell correction around the particle t hreshold, a method based on the Green's function approach has been adopted. It is demonstrated that for the vast majority of Skyrme interactions commo nly employed in nuclear structure calculations, the strongest shell stabili zation appears for Z = 124 and 126, and for N = 184. On the other hand, in the relativistic approaches the strongest spherical shell effect appears sy stematically for Z = 120 and N = 172. This difference probably has its root s in the spin-orbit potential. We have also shown that, in contrast to shel l corrections which are fairly independent of the force, macroscopic energi es extracted from self-consistent calculations strongly depend on the actua l force parametrization used. That is, the A and Z dependence of the mass s urface when extrapolating to unknown superheavy nuclei is prone to signific ant theoretical uncertainties.