Nuclear Science and Techniques

Abstract:

We studied the role that electron gas has on the formation of nuclear structures at subsaturation densities and
low temperatures (T < 1 MeV). Using a classical molecular dynamics model we studied isospin symmetric and
asymmetric matter at subsaturation densities and low temperatures varying the Coulomb interaction strength.
The effect of such variation was quantified on the fragment size multiplicity, the inter-particle distance, the
isospin content of the clusters, the nucleon mobility and cluster persistence, and on the nuclear structure shapes.
We found that the presence of an electron gas distributes matter more evenly, disrupts the formation of larger
objects, reduces the isospin content, and modifies the nucleon average displacement, but does not affect the
inter-nucleon distance in clusters. The nuclear structures are also found to change shapes by different degrees
depending on their isospin content, temperature and density.

Key words: Electron gas, Molecular dynamics, Neutron rich matter, Nuclear pasta