Nuclear skins and halos in the mean-field theory - art. no. 044326

Nuclei with large neutron-to-proton ratios have neutron skins, which manife st themselves in an excess of neutrons at distances greater than the radius of the proton distribution. Ln addition, some drip-line nuclei develop ver y extended halo structures. The neutron halo is a threshold effect; it appe ars when the valence neutrons occupy weakly bound orbits. In this study, nu clear skins and halos an analyzed within the self consistent Skyrme-Hartree -Fock-Bogoliubov and relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theories for spherical shapes. It is demonstrated that skins, halos, and surface thickness can be analyzed in a model-independent way in terms of nucleonic density form fac tors. Such an analysis allows for defining a quantitative measure of the ha lo size. The systematic behavior of skins, halos, and surface thickness in even-even nuclei is discussed.