Effective nucleon masses in symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter

Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Jul 8;95(2):022302. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.022302. Epub 2005 Jul 7.

Abstract

The momentum and isospin dependence of the in-medium nucleon mass are studied. Two definitions of the effective mass, i.e., the Dirac mass m*D and the nonrelativistic mass m*NR which parametrizes the energy spectrum, are compared. Both masses are determined from relativistic Dirac-Brueckner-Hartree-Fock calculations. The nonrelativistic mass shows a distinct peak around the Fermi momentum. The proton-neutron mass splitting in isospin asymmetric matter is m*D,n<m*D,p and opposite for the nonrelativistic mass, i.e., m*NR,n>m*NR,p, which is consistent with nonrelativistic approaches.