Compressional-mode giant resonances, nuclear incompressibility and the symmetry energy: a status report

From measurements of the compressional-mode giant resonances, experimental values for the incompressibility of nuclear matter, K∞, and the symmetry term of the nuclear incompressibility, Kτ, have been determined to be 240 ± 10 MeV and -550 ± 100 MeV, respectively. The combination of these values provides strict constraints on the interactions commonly used in nuclear structure calculations as well as in the various equations of state (EOS) for dense matter. (author)