Bounds on the presence of quantum chaos in nuclear masses⋆
Abstract.Differences between measured nuclear masses and those calculated using the Finite-Range Droplet Model are analyzed. It is shown that they have a well defined, clearly correlated oscillatory component as a function of the proton and neutron numbers. At the same time, they exhibit in their power spectrum the presence of chaos. Comparison with other mass calculations strongly suggest that this chaotic component arises from many body effects not included in the mass formula, and that they do not impose limits in the precision of mass calculations.