On an integral equation posessing a jumping-nonlinearity and corresponding to nuclear interactions (Q1363953)

The Thomas-Fermi type equation corresponding to nuclear interactions has the form \[ u(x)=F(x)+\gamma' \frac{\int \frac{e^{-|x-x'|/R}} {|x-x'|} (\mu-u(x'))_+^{3/2} dx'} {\int(\mu-u(x'))_+^{3/2}dx'}, \tag{1} \] where \(F(x)\) is the extremal potential and \(\gamma'>0\), \(R>0\), and \(\mu>0\) are constants. We consider a class of integral equations that includes equation (1), and prove for it a theorem of existence and uniqueness for sufficiently small values of \(\gamma'\). If \(\gamma'\) is not small, the nonuniqueness of the solution to (1) can be interpreted from the physical point of view as the decay of the nucleus.