From Heavy-Ion Elastic Scattering to Fission: A Unified Potential for the Description of Large-Scale Nuclear Collective Motion

In a generalization of the modified liquid-drop model obtained by requiring that two semi-infinite slabs of constant-density nuclear matter have minimum energy at zero separation, we calculate the generalized nuclear surface energy by means of a double volume integral of a Yakawa-plus-exponential folding function. This leads to a unified nuclear potential that is useful for describing heavy-ion elastic scattering and fusion, nuclear fission, and nuclear ground-state masses and deformations.