Relativistic Thomas–Fermi description of Sm isotopes at finite temperature Original Research Article

The properties of cold and hot nuclei are studied in the framework of the nonlinear Walecka model within the Thomas–Fermi approximation and using different parameterizations. Some properties of the droplets formed in a gas background, such as the excitation energy, the surface energy, the neutron skin thickness and the binding energy per nucleon are calculated as function of temperature and proton fraction. It is shown that the droplet properties are sensitive to the Coulomb interaction and to the proton fraction. In the last case, the dependence is stronger for finite temperatures. At T=0 the droplet properties do not depend on the parameterization used, but, at finite temperature, the sensitivity appears.