Empirical properties of asymmetric nuclear matter to be obtained from unstable nuclei Original Research Article

We examine relations among the parameters characterizing the phenomenological equation of state (EOS) of nearly symmetric, uniform nuclear matter near the saturation density. The EOS parameters of interest here are the symmetry energy S0, the symmetry energy density-derivative coefficient L and the incompressibility K0 at the normal nuclear density. By comparing macroscopic calculations of radii and masses of stable nuclei with the experimental data, we systematically obtain about 200 different EOSʹs, and find an empirically allowed region of (K0, L), together with a strong correlation between S0 and L. In the light of the uncertainties in the values of K0 and L, we macroscopically calculate radii of unstable nuclei. We find that the matter radii depend strongly on L while being almost independent of K0, a feature that will help to determine the L value via systematic measurements of nuclear size.