Covariance analysis of finite temperature density functional theory: symmetric nuclear matter

Abstract

We study symmetric nuclear matter at finite temperature, with particular emphasis on the liquid-gas phase transition. We use a standard covariance analysis to propagate statistical uncertainties from the density functional to the thermodynamic properties. We use four functionals with known covariance matrices to obtain as wide a set of results as possible. Our findings suggest that thermodynamical properties are very well constrained by fitting data at zero temperature. The propagated statistical errors in the liquid-gas phase transition parameters are relatively small.

13 pages, 4 figures. Accepted version in JPhysG Focus issue "Enhancing the interaction between nuclear experiment and theory through information and statistics"