Role of the Coulomb and the vector-isovector $ρ$ potentials in the isospin asymmetry of nuclear pseudospin

Abstract

We investigate the role of the Coulomb and the vector-isovector $ρ$ potentials in the asymmetry of the neutron and proton pseudospin splittings in nuclei. To this end, we solve the Dirac equation for the nucleons using central vector and scalar potentials with Woods-Saxon shape and $Z$ and $N-Z$ dependent Coulomb and $ρ$ potentials added to the vector potential. We study the effect of these potentials on the energy splittings of proton and neutron pseudospin partners along a Sn isotopic chain. We use an energy decomposition proposed in a previous work to assess the effect of a pseudospin-orbit potential on those splittings. We conclude that the effect of the Coulomb potential is quite small and the $ρ$ potential gives the main contribution to the observed isospin asymmetry of the pseudospin splittings. This isospin asymmetry results from a cancellation of the various energy terms and cannot be attributed only to the pseudospin-orbit term, confirming the dynamical character of this symmetry pointed out in previous works.

9 pages, 11 figures, uses revtex4; title was changed and several small corrections were made throughout the text