Pairing effects for rotational excitations unique to neutron-rich nuclei

Abstract

We investigate the pairing correlations in neutron-rich Mg and Cr isotopes by paying special attention to the roles of continuum states and neutron skins. By performing the coordinate space Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov calculation with the density-dependent contact pairing force, we show that the predicted pairing properties strongly depend on not only isoscalar but also isovector density dependence of the pairing force. We propose that the moment of inertia of the low-lying rotational excitations can provide desirable information to construct a reliable pairing density functional for exploring the novelty of the pairing correlations in neutron-rich nuclei close to the drip line.