gogny

Gogny, or the Gogny interaction, is a finite-range effective interaction used in nuclear structure theory to describe the interaction between nucleons in atomic nuclei. It was developed in the late 1970s and 1980s by D. Gogny and collaborators and has become a standard tool for self-consistent mean-field calculations.

The Gogny force is formulated as a sum of two finite-range central terms, usually expressed with Gaussian functions of different ranges, plus a density-dependent zero-range term that mimics three-body effects, and a spin-orbit component. This structure provides a realistic description of shell structure, deformation properties, and pairing correlations, while remaining tractable for large-scale calculations.

Parametrizations such as D1S, D1N, and D1M specify the strengths and ranges of the components and are fitted to reproduce selected properties of finite nuclei, including binding energies, charge radii, and fission barriers. D1S has been widely used for many years; D1M offers improved mass predictions and better performance for neutron-rich systems.

Applications of the Gogny interaction include Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov calculations and beyond-mean-field methods like the generator coordinate method, as well as studies of collective motion and nuclear fission. Compared with zero-range interactions such as Skyrme forces, the Gogny interaction’s finite range provides a natural treatment of pairing and finite-range effects, at the cost of increased computational demand.

Ongoing work aims to refine parametrizations to better describe nuclei away from stability and to benchmark against other effective interactions, experimental data, and ab initio results.