Constraining the density dependence of the symmetry energy from nuclear masses

Empirically determined values of the nuclear volume and surface symmetry energy coefficients from nuclear masses are expressed in terms of density distributions of nucleons in heavy nuclei in the local density approximation. This is then used to extract the value of the symmetry energy slope parameter L. The density distributions in both spherical and well deformed nuclei calculated within microscopic framework with different energy density functionals give L = 59.0 +/- 13.0 MeV. Application of the method also helps in a precision determination of the neutron skin thickness of nuclei that are difficult to measure accurately.