Bootstrap technique to study correlation between neutron skin thickness and the slope of symmetry energy in atomic nuclei

Abstract

We examine the proposed correlation between the neutron skin thickness and the slope of the symmetry energy for two doubly-magic nuclei ( 100Sn and 132Sn) and find that a statistically significant correlation appears to exist for 132Sn whilst no such correlation appears to exist for 100Sn. Additionally, we present a new statistical tool based on random sampling to assess the confidence interval of Pearson’s and Spearman’s correlation coefficients in order to examine the aforementioned correlation. These estimators are then used to quantify the statistical correlations among the neutron skin thickness of atomic nuclei and the slope of the symmetry energy in the infinite nuclear medium.