Heavy nuclei : Introduction to density functional theory and variations on the theme⋆

Density Functional Theory (DFT) is based on the rigorous Hohenberg-Kohn (HK) theorem, that has been first introduced for electronic systems but holds for all fermionic systems including atomic nuclei. Currently, DFT has reached a high level of sophistication, and represents a suitable tool for a self-consistent, quantitative description of bulk nuclear properties (like masses, radii and deformations) of all nuclei except, perhaps, the lightest ones. Furthermore, time-dependent calculations within the same framework account for the observed properties of several different types of nuclear collective motion. In this paper, we introduce these topics by assuming only a previous knowledge of general quantum mechanics and of basic nuclear phenomenology (we actually review some parts of it).