Mean field theory and nuclear radii

We briefly review the description of the nuclear ground state in the framework of the mean field theory for closed and open-shell nuclei. We compare theoretical predictions to the ground state charge and magnetization densities measured by electron scattering. We report theoretical predictions for the radii of proton and neutron orbits in the Ba and CS regions. We estimate the uncertainty on the radii of neutron orbits in open shell nuclei to be the order of 3%. The impact of this uncertainty on the interpretation of the results of atomic parity violation experiments is not significant at their present level of precision. (authors)