Shell Structure: A Major Theme in the Binding of Various Physical Systems

Abstract

The nuclear shell-model description, in order to account for the stability of the various nuclei as well as of the peculiar shell-structures observed in the energy spectra of many nuclei, has basically been copied from the much older Bohr model for the atom. Whereas, in this Bohr model, the atomic nucleus plays the natural role for the singular character (1/r) of the Coulomb potential that the electrons feel in their motion, the nuclear case is not so straightforward. As was discussed at length in Chap. 3, it is, however, possible to determine to a good approximation an average one-body potential, using self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculations starting from the original nucleon-nucleon two-body interactions.