Relativistic correction of the Coulomb interaction in the local density approximation for energies and radii in doubly-magic nuclei

Abstract Effects of the relativistic correction of the Coulomb interaction on doubly-magic nuclei are discussed with Skyrme Hartree–Fock calculations. The relativistic correction is treated by using the local density approximation. It is found that the correction to the total energy is about $2.4 \, \mathrm{MeV}$ for ^{208}_{}\mathrm{Pb}$, while the proton and neutron radii do not change significantly. This difference is larger than the difference of the Coulomb exchange (Fock) energy calculated with the local density (Hartree–Fock–Slater) approximation and that with the exact treatment and the neutron finite-size effect. Effects of the correction are also compared to the correction due to the vacuum polarization. It is shown that the two contributions to the total energy are comparable in light nuclei, but the latter dominates in heavy nuclei, while the contribution of the relativistic correction to the total energy is non-negligible compared to the target accuracy of the DFT calculation.