Gamow-Teller strength and the spin-isospin coupling constants of the Skyrme energy functional

We investigate the effects of the spin-isospin channel of the Skyrme energy functional on predictions for Gamow-Teller distributions and superdeformed rotational bands. We use the generalized Skyrme interaction SkO' to describe even-even ground states and then analyze the effects of time-odd spin-isospin couplings, first term by term and then together via linear regression. Some terms affect the strength and energy of the Gamow-Teller resonance in finite nuclei without altering the Landau parameter g_0' that to leading order determines spin-isospin properties of nuclear matter. Though the existing data are not sufficient to uniquely determine all the spin-isospin couplings, we are able to fit them locally. Altering these coupling constants does not change the quality with which the Skyrme functional describes rotational bands.