Exotic nonaxial-octupole shapes in $N=184$ isotones from covariant density functional theories

Abstract

The nonaxial octupole shape in some nuclei with $N = 184$, namely, $^{284}$Fm, $^{286}$No, $^{288}$Rf, and $^{290}$Sg, is investigated using covariant density functional theories. Employing the density-dependent point-coupling covariant density functional theory with the parameter set DD-PC1 in the particle-hole channel, it is found that the ground states of $^{284}$Fm, $^{286}$No, $^{288}$Rf, and $^{290}$Sg have pure nonaxial octupole shapes with deformation parameters $\beta_{31} \approx 0.08$ and $\beta_{33} \approx -0.01 \sim -0.03$. The energy gain due to the $\beta_{31}$ and $\beta_{33}$ distortion is $\sim$ 1 MeV. The occurrence of the nonaxial octupole correlations is mainly from the proton orbitals $1i_{13/2}$ and $2f_{7/2}$, which are close to the proton Fermi surface. The dependence of the nonaxial octupole effects on the form of the energy density functional and on the parameter set is also studied.