Isotopic Dependence of the Nuclear Charge Radii and Binding Energies in the Relativistic Hartree-Fock Formalism

Relativistic nonlinear models based on the Hartree and Hartree-Fock approximations, including the sigma, omega, pi, and rho mesons, are worked out to explore the behavior of the nuclear charge radii and the binding energies of several isotopic chains. We find a correlation between the magnitude of the anomalous kink effect (KE) in the Pb isotopic family and the compressibility modulus (K) of nuclear matter. The KE appears to be sensitive, in particular, to the mechanisms which control the K value. The influence of the symmetry energy on the Ca isotopic chain is also studied. The behavior of the charge radii of single-particle states for some special cases and its repercussion on the nuclear charge radius is analyzed. The effect of pairing correlations on the models improves considerably the quality of the results in both binding energy and KE.