Relativistic nuclear energy density functional constrained by low-energy QCD

A relativistic nuclear energy density functional is developed, guided by two important features that establish connections with chiral dynamics and the symmetry breaking pattern of low-energy QCD: (a) strong scalar and vector fields related to in-medium changes of QCD vacuum condensates; (b) the long- and intermediate-range interactions generated by one- and two-pion exchange, derived from in-medium chiral perturbation theory, with explicit inclusion of Δ(1232) excitations. Applications are presented for binding energies, radii of proton and neutron distributions and other observables over a wide range of spherical and deformed nuclei from 16O to 210Po. Isotopic chains of Sn and Pb nuclei are studied as test cases for the isospin dependence of the underlying interactions. The results are at the same level of quantitative comparison with data as the best phenomenological relativistic mean-field models.