Effect of Coulomb energy on the symmetry energy coefficients of finite nuclei.

The nuclear symmetry energy coefficients of finite nuclei are extracted by using the differences between the masses of isobaric nuclei. Based on the masses of more than 2400 nuclei with A = 10-270, we investigate the model dependence in the extraction of the symmetry energy coefficient. We find that the extraction of the symmetry energy coefficients is strongly correlated with the forms of the Coulomb energy and the mass dependence of the symmetry energy coefficient adopted. The values of the extracted symmetry energy coefficients increase by about 2 MeV for heavy nuclei when the Coulomb correction term is involved. The values of the bulk symmetry energy coefficient S0 and the surface-to-volume ratio k are simultaneously investigated based on the extracted symmetry energy coefficients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]