Charge radii of potassium isotopes in the RMF (BCS)* approach *

Abstract

Abstract We apply the recently proposed RMF (BCS)* ansatz to study the charge radii of the potassium isotopic chain up to 52K. It is shown that the experimental data can be reproduced rather well, qualitatively similar to the Fayans nuclear density functional theory, but with a slightly better description of the odd–even staggerings (OES). Nonetheless, both methods fail for 50K and to a lesser extent for 48,52K. It is shown that if these nuclei are deformed with a , then one can obtain results consistent with experiments for both charge radii and spin-parities. We argue that beyond-mean-field studies are needed to properly describe the charge radii of these three nuclei, particularly for 50K.