Nuclear isotope shifts within the local energy-density functional approach

The foundation of the local energy-density functional method to describe th e nuclear ground-state properties is given. The method is used to investiga te differential observables such as the odd-even mass differences and odd-e ven effects in charge radii. For a few isotope chains of spherical nuclei, the calculations are performed with an exact treatment of the Gor'kov equat ions in the coordinate-space representation. A zero-range cutoff density-de pendent pairing interaction with a density-gradient term is used. The evolu tion of charge radii and nucleon separation energies is reproduced reasonab ly well including kinks at magic neutron numbers and sizes of staggering. I t is shown that the density-dependent pairing may also induce sizeable stag gering and kinks in the evolution of the mean energies of multipole excitat ions. The results are compared with the conventional mean field Skyrme-HFB and relativistic Hartree-BCS calculations. With the formulated approach, an extrapolation from the pairing properties of finite nuclei to pairing in i nfinite matter is considered, and the dilute limit near the critical point, at which the regime changes from weak to strong pairing, is discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. Ail rights reserved.