Differential analysis of incompressibility in neutron-rich nuclei

Bao-An Li, Wen-Jie Xie

Published 2021-02-21Version 1

Both the incompressibility \Ka of a finite nucleus of mass A and that ($K_{\infty}$) of infinite nuclear matter are fundamentally important for many critical issues in nuclear physics and astrophysics. While some consensus has been reached about the $K_{\infty}$, accurate theoretical predictions and experimental extractions of $K_{\tau}$ characterizing the isospin dependence of \Ka have been very difficult. We propose a differential approach to extract the \Kt and \Ki independently from the \Ka data of any two nuclei in a given isotope chain. Applying this novel method to the \Ka data from giant monopole resonances in even-even Sn, Cd, Ca, Mo and Zr isotopes taken by U. Garg {\it et al.} at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University, Japan, we find that the $^{106}$Cd-$^{116}$Cd and $^{112}$Sn-$^{124}$Sn pairs having the largest differences in isospin asymmetries in their respective isotope chains measured so far provide consistently the most accurate up-to-date \Kt value of $K_{\tau}=-616\pm 59$ MeV and $K_{\tau}=-623\pm 86$ MeV, respectively, largely independent of the remaining uncertainties of the surface and Coulomb terms in expanding the $K_{\rm A}$.