Modern nuclear structure theory is rapidly evolving from macroscopic and microscopic models of stable nuclei towards vast regions of short-lived nuclei far from the valley of beta-stability. One of the central goals of theoretical nuclear physics is to establish a relationship between low-energy, non-perturbative QCD and the rich phenomenology of nuclear many-body systems. An extensive study of microscopic nuclear energy density functionals has recently been initiated based on effective field theory methods and principles of density functional theory. Guided by two closely related features of QCD in the low-energy limit: a) in-medium changes of vacuum condensates, and b) spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry; a framework of relativistic energy density functionals has been developed and applied in studies of ground-state properties of spherical and deformed nuclei. It has been demonstrated that a self-consistent Kohn-Sham density functional approach to nuclear dynamics, constrained by the chiral symmetry breaking pattern and the condensate structure of low-energy QCD, can provide an accurate description of nuclear matter, bulk properties and excitations of stable nuclei and exotic systems far from stability.

retrieved from pekin university science department