SCHOOL OF STUDIES IN PHYSICS JIWAJI UNIVERSITY GWALIOR

Topic: Liquid Drop Model and Semi-emprical Mass Formula

Nucleus
The nucleus is the center of an atom. It is made up of nucleons called (protons and neutrons) and
is surrounded by the electron cloud. The size (diameter) of the nucleus is between
1.6 fm (10−15 m) (for a proton in light hydrogen) to about 15 fm (for the heaviest atoms, such
as uranium). These sizes are much smaller than the size of the atom itself by a factor of about
23,000 (uranium) to about 145,000 (hydrogen). Although it is only a very small part of the atom,
the nucleus has most of the mass. Almost all of the mass in an atom is made up from the protons
and neutrons in the nucleus with a very small contribution from the orbiting electrons.
Neutrons have no charge and protons are positively charged. Because the nucleus is only made
up of protons and neutrons it is positively charged. Things that have the same charge repel each
other: this repulsion is part of what is called electromagnetic force. Unless there was something
else holding the nucleus together it could not exist because the protons would push away from
each other. The nucleus is actually held together by another force known as the strong nuclear
force.
Nuclear Model
In order to explain how the nucleus looks like and how nucleons are held inside nucleus, several
models have been proposed that help us to understand various nucleus features. The various
models proposed are
 Liquid Drop Model
 Nucleus Shell Model proposed independently
 Collective Model
The liquid-drop model, which treats some of the gross collective features of nuclei in a way
similar to the calculation of the properties of a droplet of liquid and the shell model deals more
with individual nucleons. A successful model should satisfy two criteria
 It must reasonably explain the previously measured nuclear properties.
 It must predict additional properties that can be measured in new experiments.
Liquid Drop Model
The liquid drop model proposed by George Gamow and then developed by N. Bohr and J.A.
Wheeler. Assumptions for the model are;
 According to this model, the atomic nucleus behaves like the molecules in a drop of
liquid. But in this nuclear scale, the fluid is made of nucleons (protons and neutrons),
which are held together by the strong nuclear force. Nuclear density is independent of
nuclear volume as that of liquid drop.
 Nuclear forces are independent of spin and charge.
 The liquid drop model of the nucleus takes into account the fact that the nuclear forces on
the nucleons on the surface are different from those on nucleons in the interior of the
nucleus. The interior nucleons are completely surrounded by other attracting nucleons.
Here is the analogy with the forces that form a drop of liquid.
  Emission of the radioactive rays is similar to release of water vapor when liquid drop is
heated
 In the ground state the nucleus is spherical. If the sufficient kinetic or binding energy is
added, this spherical nucleus may be distorted into a dumbbell shape and then may be
splitted into two fragments. Since these fragments are a more stable configuration, the
splitting of such heavy nuclei must be accompanied by energy release. This model does
not explain all the properties of the atomic nucleus, but does explain the predicted nuclear
binding energies.
Semi-emprical Mass Formula
One of the first models which could describe very well the behavior of the nuclear binding
energies and therefore of nuclear masses was the mass formula of von Weizsaecker (also
called the semi-empirical mass formula – SEMF), that was published in 1935 by German
physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker.
The nuclear binding energy as a fuction of mass number A and the number of protrons Z based
on the liquid drop model can be written as:

This formula is called the Weizsaecker Formula (semi-emprical mass formula). The physical
meaning of the equation can be discussed term by term.
Volume term – aV.A. The first two terms describe a spherical liquid drop of an incompressible
fluid with a contribution from the volume scaling with A and from the surface, scaling with A 2/3.
The first positive term aV.A is known as the volume term and it is caused by the attracting strong
forces between the nucleons. The strong force has a very limited range and a given nucleon
may only interact with its direct neighbours. Therefore this term is proportional to A, instead of
A2. The coefficient aV is usually about ~ 16 MeV.
Surface term – asf.A2/3. The surface term is also based on the strong force, it is, in fact,
a correction to the volume term. The point is that particles at the surface of the nucleus are not
completely surrounded by other particles. In the volume term, it is suggested that each nucleon
interacts with a constant number of nucleons, independent of A. This assumption is very nearly
true for nucleons deep within the nucleus, but causes an overestimation of the binding energy
on the surface. By analogy with a liquid drop this effect is indicated as the surface tension
effect. If the volume of the nucleus is proportional to A, then the geometrical radius should be
proportional to A1/3 and therefore the surface term must be proportional to the surface area i.e.
proportional to A2/3.
Coulomb term – aC.Z2.A-⅓. This term describes the Coulomb repulsion between the uniformly
distributed protons and is proportional to the number of proton pairs Z2/R, whereby R is
proportional to A1/3. This effect lowers the binding energy because of the repulsion between
charges of equal sign.
Asymmetry term – aA.(A-2Z)2/A. This term cannot be described as ‘classically’ as the first
three. This effect is not based on any of the fundamental forces, this effect is based only on the
Pauli exclusion principle (no two fermions can occupy exactly the same quantum state in an
atom). The heavier nuclei contain more neutrons than protons. These extra neutrons are
necessary for stability of the heavier nuclei. They provide (via the attractive forces between the
neutrons and protons) some compensation for the repulsion between the protons. On the other
hand, if there are significantly more neutrons than protons in a nucleus, some of the neutrons will
be higher in energy level in the nucleus. This is the basis for a correction factor, the so-called
symmetry term.
Pairing term – δ(A,Z). The last term is the pairing term δ(A,Z). This term captures the effect of
spin-coupling. Nuclei with an even number of protons and an even number of neutrons are (due
to Pauli exclusion principle) very stable thanks to the occurrence of ‘paired spin’. On the other
hand, nuclei with an odd number of protons and neutrons are mostly unstable.
With the aid of the Weizsaecker formula the binding energy can be calculated very well for
nearly all isotopes. This formula provides a good fit for heavier nuclei. For light nuclei,
especially for 4He, it provides a poor fit. The main reason is the formula does not consider the
internal shell structure of the nucleus.
In order to calculate the binding energy, the coefficients aV, aS, aC, aA and aP must be known. The
coefficients have units of megaelectron volts (MeV) and are calculated by
fitting to experimentally measured masses of nuclei. The coefficients in the equation are
following:

Using the Weizsaecker formula, also the mass of an atomic nucleus can be derived and is given
by:
M = Z.mp +N.mn -Eb/c2
where mp and mn are the rest mass of a proton and a neutron, respectively, and Eb is the nuclear
binding energy of the nucleus. From the nuclear binding energy curve it can be seen that, in the
case of splitting a 235U nucleus into two parts, the binding energy of the fragments (A ≈ 120)
together is larger than that of the original 235U nucleus. According to the Weizsaecker formula,
the total energy released for such reaction will be approximately 235 x (8.5 – 7.6) ≈ 200 MeV.