Relativistic mean-field study on proton skins and proton halos in exotic nuclei Original Research Article

We investigate the ground state properties of proton-rich nuclei in the framework of the relativistic mean-field model. Calculations show that the experimental proton halo in the nuclei 26,27,28P can be reproduced by the model. The proton halos can appear in proton-rich nuclei because the total nuclear potential is attractive up to the radial distance r ≈ 5.5 fm. But the size of proton halos is finite due to the limitation of the Coulomb potential barrier. The mean-square radius of a halo proton is not very sensitive to the separation energy of the last proton in some very proton-rich nuclei due to the effect of the Coulomb barrier. This behavior is different from the case of a neutron halo where the mean-square radius of a halo neutron is inversely proportional to the separation energy of the last halo neutron. We have also analysed the differences of the relativistic mean-field potentials of 25Al and 26P and found that the isovector potential from the p meson has an important effect on the differences.