NUCLEAR STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS WITH DENSITY FUNCTIONAL THEORY

The superfluid local density approximation (SLDA) is widely used to compute ground-state properties of heavy nuclei. In the same framework, the time-dependent (TD) SLDA can provide information about the excited states and can be used to investigate phenomena involving large amplitude collective motion such as nuclear reactions. Hence, the TDSLDA represents an alternative to the more traditional approaches to nuclear reactions, in which the static and dynamic properties are usually decoupled. In this consistent framework, I briefly discuss the main characteristics of the Coulomb excitation of a U-238 nucleus by a relativistic projectile.