Study of the equation of state for asymmetric nuclear matter and interaction potential between neutron-rich nuclei using the density-dependent M3Y interaction

Realistic versions of the M3Y effective nucleon-nucleon interaction have been used to calculate the basic properties of asymmetric nuclear matter within a non-relativistic Hartree-Fock scheme. Special attention was devoted to the dependence of the binding energy, pressure and incompressibility upon the neutron-proton asymmetry, Our results reproduce reasonably well the empirical value of the symmetry energy and the softening of the equation of state for neutron-rich nuclear matter, as suggested in several supernova studies. The same effective interaction has been further used to calculate the interaction potential between neutron-rich nuclei within an extended version of the double-folding model, where the knock-on exchange and the isospin dependence of the nucleon-nucleon interaction are treated explicitly. The symmetry (isospin-dependent) term of the central nucleus-nucleus potential was found to be negligible compared to the isoscalar term. An exploratory study of the elastic He-8,Li-11+C-14 scattering was performed using the new folded potentials, and possible signatures of the He-8,Li-11 neutron halos in these processes have been discussed.