Empirical information on nuclear matter fourth-order symmetry energy from an extended nuclear mass formula

We establish a relation between the equation of state (EOS) of nuclear matter and the fourth-order symmetry energy $a_{\rm{sym,4}}(A)$ of finite nuclei in a semi-empirical nuclear mass formula by self-consistently considering the bulk, surface and Coulomb contributions to the nuclear mass. Such a relation allows us to extract information on nuclear matter fourth-order symmetry energy $E_{\rm{sym,4}}(\rho_0)$ at normal nuclear density $\rho_0$ from analyzing nuclear mass data. Based on the recent precise extraction of $a_{\rm{sym,4}}(A)$ via the double difference of the "experimental" symmetry energy extracted from nuclear masses, for the first time, we estimate a value of $E_{\rm{sym,4}}(\rho_0) = 20.0\pm4.6$ MeV. Such a value of $E_{\rm{sym,4}}(\rho_0)$ is significantly larger than the predictions from mean-field models and thus suggests the importance of considering the effects of beyond the mean-field approximation in nuclear matter calculations.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Presentation improved and discussions added. Accepted version to appear in PL