Physics of Fock Terms on Fourth-order Symmetry Energy of Nuclear Matter

The density dependence of nuclear fourth-order symmetry energy S₄ is studied within the covariant density functional (CDF) theory in terms of the kinetic energy, isospin-singlet, and isospin-triplet potential energy parts of the energy density functional. When the Fock diagram is introduced, it is found that both isospin-singlet and isospin-triplet components of the potential energy plays important roles in determining the fourth-order symmetry energy. Especially, an extra suppression, which comes from the Fock terms via isoscalar meson-nucleon coupling channels, is revealed in the isospin-triplet potential part of the fourth-order symmetry energy. As an useful attempt, the generalized symmetry energy is introduced to describe the various orders of nuclear symmetry energies in a visual and self-consistent way.