Moments of inertia in light deformed nuclei: pairing and mean-field impacts

Abstract

The dependence of the moment of inertia $\cal J$ on the pairing and axial quadrupole deformation $\beta$ in $^{24}$Mg and $^{20}$Ne was investigated. The study is based on quadrupole-constrained calculations with three cranking approaches for $\cal J$ (Inglis-Belyaev, Thouless-Valatin, adiabatic time-dependent Hartree-Fock) and a representative set of Skyrme forces (SVbas, SkM*, SLy6). At variance with macroscopic collective models, the calculations predict the specific regime $d{\cal J}/d\beta<0$ at $\beta \ge 0.5$ ($^{24}$Mg) and $\beta \ge 0.6$ ($^{20}$Ne), where the pairing breaks down. This regime is explained by two effects: full break up of the pairing and specific evolution of a {\it single} dominant particle-hole (1ph) configuration with $\beta$. The analysis of experimental data for the ground-state rotational bands in $^{24}$Mg and $^{20}$Ne shows that such regime is possible at low spins.