Continuum effects in neutron-rich nuclei: microscopic treatment in HFB and QRPA approaches

We examine how pairing and continuum effects can be treated self-consistently in the microscopic description of ground states and excited states of neutron-rich nuclei. Assuming an effective interaction of the Skyrme type we show how the self-consistent fields of the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) theory can be constructed with the inclusion of the continuum. The effects of continuum are shown to be more pronounced in the vicinity of the drip lines. On the basis of the continuum-HFB solution one can build the continuum-QRPA approach which provides a consistent description of the excitations. As an illustration, we present and discuss some results obtained for low-lying excitations and giant resonances in neutron-rich Oxygen isotopes and in 26Ne. (author)