Bounds to binding energies from the concavity of thermodynamical functions
Sequences of experimental ground-state energies are mapped onto concave patterns cured from convexities due to pairing and/or shell effects. The same patterns, completed by a list of excitation energies, can be used to give numerical estimates of the grand potential $\Omega(\beta,\mu)$ for a mixture of nuclei at low or moderate temperatures $T=\beta^{-1}$ and at many chemical potentials $\mu.$ The average nucleon number $ (\beta,\mu)$ then becomes a continuous variable, allowing extrapolations towards nuclear masses closer to drip lines. We study the possible concavity of several thermodynamical functions, such as the free energy and the average energy, as functions of $ .$ Concavity, when present in such functions, allows trivial interpolations and extrapolations providing upper and lower bounds, respectively, to binding energies. Such bounds define an error bar for the prediction of binding energies. An extrapolation scheme for such concave functions is tested. We conclude with numerical estimates of the binding energies of a few nuclei closer to drip lines.