The predictive power of the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum (DRHBc) for nuclear mass is examined in the superheavy region, $102\le Z\le 120$. The accuracy of predicting the 10 (56) measured (measured and empirical) masses is 0.635 (0.642) MeV, in comparison with 0.515 (1.360) MeV by WS4 and 0.910 (2.831) MeV by FRDM. Possible stability against multineutron emission beyond the two-neutron drip line is explored by the DRHBc theory, which takes into account simultaneously the deformation effects, the pairing correlations, and the continuum effects. Nuclei stable against two- and multineutron emissions beyond the two-neutron drip line are predicted in ${}_{106}\mathrm{Sg}, {}_{108}\mathrm{Hs}, {}_{110}\mathrm{Ds}$, and ${}_{112}\mathrm{Cn}$ isotopic chains, forming a peninsula of stability adjacent to the nuclear mainland. This stability is mainly due to the deformation which significantly affects the shell structure around the Fermi surface. The pairing correlations and continuum influence the stability peninsula in a self-consistent way.

There is a degeneracy between the equation of state (EOS) of superdense neutron-rich nuclear matter and the strong-field gravity in understanding properties of neutron stars. While the EOS is still poorly known, there are also longstanding ambiguities in choosing Einstein's general relativity (GR) or alternative gravity theories in the not-so-well-tested strong-field regime. Besides the possible appearance of hyperons and new phases, the most uncertain part of the nucleonic EOS is currently the density dependence of nuclear symmetry energy especially at suprasaturation densities. At the same time, the EOS of symmetric nuclear matter (SNM) has been significantly constrained at saturation and suprasaturation densities. To provide information that may help break the EOS-gravity degeneracy, we investigate effects of nuclear symmetry energy within its uncertain range determined by recent terrestrial nuclear laboratory experiments on the gravitational binding energy and space-time curvature of neutron stars within GR and the scalar-tensor subset of alternative gravity models, constrained by recent measurements of the relativistic binary pulsars J1738 + 0333 and J0348 + 0432. In particular, we focus on effects of the following three parameters characterizing the EOS of superdense neutron-rich nucleonic matter: (1) the incompressibility $K_0$ of SNM, (2) the slope $L$ of nuclear symmetry energy at saturation density, and (3) the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy. We find that the variation of either the density slope $L$ or the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy leads to large changes in both the binding energy and the curvature of neutron stars while effects of varying the more constrained $K_0$ are negligibly small. The difference in predictions using the GR and the scalar-tensor theory appears only for massive neutron stars, and even then it is significantly smaller than the differences resulting from variations in the symmetry energy. We conclude that, within the scalar-tensor subset of gravity models, the EOS-gravity degeneracy has been broken by the recent relativistic pulsar measurements and that measurements of neutron-star properties sensitive to the compactness constrain mainly the density dependence of the symmetry energy at saturation and suprasaturation densities.

We study the chiral phase transition inside a rotating cylinder within the framework of the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. A spectral boundary condition is imposed to avoid faster than light. We investigate how the geometry of the cylinder and rotation influence the chiral phase transition at finite temperature and chemical potential. The inhomogeneous effects caused by the finite size and rotation are also taken into account. It is found that finite size will reduce the chiral transition temperature and raises the chiral transition chemical potential, while the rotation reduces both the chiral transition temperature and chemical potential. In addition, we discuss the implications of our results in heavy-ion collisions and equation of states of neutron star.

We study the chirally imbalanced hot and dense strongly interacting matter by means of the Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSEs). The chiral phase diagram is studied in the presence of chiral chemical potential μ ₅. The chiral quark condensate $$ \left\langle \overline{\psi}\psi \right\rangle $$ ψ ¯ ψ is obtained with the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis (CJT) effective action in concert with the Rainbow truncation. Catalysis effect of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking (DCSB) by μ ₅ is observed. We examine with two popular gluon models and consistency is found within the DSE approach, as well as in comparison with lattice QCD. The critical end point (CEP) location (μ _E , T _E ) shifts toward larger T _E but constant μ _E as μ ₅ increases. A technique is then introduced to compute the chiral charge density n ₅ from the fully dressed quark propagator. We find the n ₅ generally increases with temperature T , quark number chemical potential μ and μ ₅. Since the chiral magnetic effect (CME) is typically investigated with peripheral collisions, we also investigate the finite size effect on n ₅ and find an increase in n ₅ with smaller system size.

The predictive power of the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum (DRHBc) with density functional PC-PK1 is demonstrated for superheavy region ($101⩽Z⩽120$) by comparing with available experimental and evaluated data from AME2020. The DRHBc theory predicts 93 bound nuclei beyond the drip line $N=258$ in the region of $106⩽Z⩽112$, which form a stability peninsula. The odd-even differences between $\mathrm{odd}\text{−}N$ and even-$N$ nuclei are remarkable in the peninsula; the one-neutron separation energy of an $\mathrm{odd}\text{−}N$ nucleus is smaller than those of its neighboring even-$N$ nuclei due to the blocking effect, and as a result the number of bound $\mathrm{odd}\text{−}N$ nuclei is less than that of bound even-$N$ nuclei. The deformation effect is indispensable for the re-entrant stability beyond the drip line by significantly affecting the structure of single-particle levels around the Fermi energy. The interplay between deformation and pairing influences the location of the first bound $\mathrm{odd}\text{−}N$ nucleus in the peninsula. By examining the deformation effect at different orders, it is found that quadrupole deformation ${\beta }_2$ contributes predominantly to the appearance of stability peninsula, and the effects of higher-order deformations ${\beta }_4$ and ${\beta }_6$ are non-negligible.