Sensitivity of Electric Dipole Polarizability to Bulk Nuclear Properties*

The electric dipole polarizability, α_D, has been considered in the literature to be sensitive to the neutron skin Δr_np and to the density dependence of the symmetry energy J = J(ρ). We carry out a detailed investigation of the sensitivity of α_D to: J(ρ) and its derivatives evaluated at the saturation density ρ₀ as well as other bulk nuclear matter (NM) properties, and neutron skin. We use the Hartree-Fock based random phase approximation to calculate strength function of the isovector dipole resonance for ^40,48Ca, ⁶⁸Ni, ⁹⁰Zr, ¹²⁰Sn, ²⁰⁸Pb, and calculate α_D, which we compare to experimental results. We also determine the Pearson linear correlation coefficients between α_D and NM properties. Our calculations were carried out using 33 Skyrme type interactions with wide ranges of values for NM properties. We determine approximate bounds on the values for certain NM properties.