Microscopic description of rotation: From ground states to the extremes of ultra-high spin

Abstract

Recent progress in the microscopic description of rotational properties within covariant density functional theory (CDFT) is presented. It is shown that it provides an accurate description of rotational bands both in the paired regime at low spin and in the unpaired regime at ultra-high spins. The predictive power of CDFT is verified by comparing the CDFT predictions for band crossing features in the $A\ge 242$ actinides with new experimental data. In addition, possible role of the Coulomb antipairing effect for proton pairing is discussed.

Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures, contribution to 20th Nuclear Physics workshop "Marie and Pierre Curie", Kazimierz, Poland 2013, Physica Scripta in press