Properties of the quasiparticle excitations in 207Pb and 209Pb from an extrapolation of the optical-model potential

A previously developed dispersion relation approach is used to calculate the shell-model potential in the case of neutrons in ²⁰⁸Pb, in the energy domain (-50 MeV, 0). This potential contains a dispersive contribution besides a Hartree-Fock type component, and thereby includes correlation and polarization effects. The shell-model and the Hartree-Fock type potentials are assumed to have Woods-Saxon shapes with diffuseness a_v = 0.70 fm; the energy dependence of their depths and radii is calculated. The energy dependence of the shell-model potential is characterized by the effective mass, whose dependence upon radial distance and neutron energy is determined. The effective mass is a sensitive function of energy, in contrast to its Hartree-Fock type component which is nearly independent of energy. Attention is drawn to the fact that the effective mass in nuclear matter cannot be straightforwardly identified with the effective mass at the nuclear centre. The effective mass presents a sharp peak at the nuclear surface near the Fermi energy and a dip at the surface for energies 10 to 20 MeV away from the Fermi energy. The spectroscopic factors of single-particle excitations in ²⁰⁷Pb and ²⁰⁹Pb are calculated from the difference between the effective mass and its Hartree-Fock type component. The predicted values of the valence single-particle wave functions at large radial distances are in fair agreement with experimental values deduced from analyses of sub-Coulomb pickup reactions. It is shown that the dispersive contribution increases the level density parameter by about 25%, in agreement with previous microscopic or semi-phenomenological models; the calculated level density parameter is in good agreement with the empirical value.