Microscopic mechanism of the Fayans pairing for the enhancement of charge radii

The Fayans energy density functional (EDF), and in particular its pairing sector, have been claimed to be able to reproduce the experimental data of charge radii in many instances. A particularly intriguing case is that of the $\mathrm{C}\mathrm{a}$ isotopes between $A=40$ and $48$, where charge radii exhibit a “bell shape”. In our work, we examine the microscopic origin of this behaviour. We prepare in total $25$ paramerizations of the Fayans-like pairing interaction, that are equivalent in fulfilling the same criteria for the reproduction of empirical pairing gaps. We find that both the density and the density-gradient dependence of the pairing interaction are important to reproduce the well-known enhancement of charge radii in the open-shell nuclei, leading to the “bell shape” behaviour of $\mathrm{C}\mathrm{a}$ isotopes. In particular, this originates from the repulsive nature of the rearrangement potential, and cannot simply be mocked up by a refit of the pairing strength. At the same time, we notice some drawbacks of the Fayans standard EDFs, that may call for investigating a more general form of it.