Determining the Ground State for Superheavy Nuclei from the Deformed Relativistic Hartree–Bogoliubov Theory in Continuum

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors performed illustrative computations for several hypothetical superheavy nuclei using the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum, in order to assess the dependence of ground-state potential energy on the angular momentum cutoff and step size of quadrupole deformation parameter.

The computations are rather standard and the results are of useful guidance for large-scale calculations of superheavy nuclei. I consider this work can be published in “particle”. There is however several points I would like to request the authors to address.

1. In their calculation, to reproduce the experimental odd-even mass differences for benchmark  isotope chains, a stronger pairing force favors a smaller value of angular momentum cutoff, while a weaker pairing force requires a smaller value of cutoff. Please the authors explain the reason. In principle, the particle-particle and particle-hole interactions should be fixed, one needs only to ind out an appropriate numerical setup.

2. In figures 2-5, the potential energy curves go towards opposite directions for smaller and larger angular momentum cutoff as deformation parameter is increasing. Please the authors explain the reason. It seems there is no energy minima for the calculation with large values of angular momentum cutoff. This make the results essentially depend on the numerical setup.

3. It is not clear yet that which value for truncation lambda in the Legendre polynomials and the size of box were used in their calculations for Z = 134 isotopes. If this elements shall further affect their results?

4. In page 6 line 187, “Z = 320” there Z should be N.  

5. The authors quoted typical reference for studies of superheavy nulei with Gogny, Skyrme forces and RMF model, the work with more complicated relativistic HFB approach in continuum might be mentioned as well for the sake of completeness.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Particles-3346032

The authors investigate the properties of superheavy nuclei far beyond the currently reachable mass-charge region by covariant HFB theory including deformation degrees of freedom.   Before publication can be recommended, the authors should consider the following issues:

1. Empirical EDF models are notoriously in trouble by extrapolations into regions of the nuclear chart beyond the data base used to fix the EDF parameters. In view of that problem, it would  be helpful and necessary to estimate the uncertainties of the results. 
2. Results on nuclear masses and binding energies should be shown in tabulated form, following the established standards of displaying B(A) (or, likewise, B(A)/A). 
3. For deformed nuclei good practice is to show the nuclear landscape in terms of a beta-gamma diagram - which should be added.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The is recommended for publication.