Nuclear DFT description of proton-neutron pairing correlations in N~Z nuclei

The project aims to develop nuclear DFT computational infrastructure that will allow for meaningful analyses of pair correlations in N~Z nuclei. This will require extensions of the existing approaches to allow for arbitrary mixing of proton and neutron quasiparticles and thus give a consistent description of paired states in all isospin channels. As we have learned from the work of the previous PhD student Antonio Romero, the key feature of the approach should be the simultaneous restoration of the isospin, angular-momentum, and particle-number symmetries. The work will entail analytical derivations of the isospin-mixing formalism of nuclear DFT with pairing, implementing the relevant elements with the existing DFT code, benchmarking the results, and performing calculations in nuclei around the N=Z line of the nuclear chart. Systematic determination of measurable observables, principally related to the energies and transition rates between low-lying collective states, will link theoretical developments to the experimental program at York. In addition, studies of pair-transfer rates will guide future challenging experiments that could target this second class of observables.