Nuclear Deformation at Finite Temperature
- Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Center for Theoretical Physics, Sloane Physics Lab.
- Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Inst. of Nuclear Theory
Deformation, a key concept in our understanding of heavy nuclei, is based on a mean-field description that breaks the rotational invariance of the nuclear many-body Hamiltonian. Here, we present a method to analyze nuclear deformations at finite temperature in a framework that preserves rotational invariance. The auxiliary-field Monte-Carlo method is used to generate the statistical ensemble and calculate the probability distribution associated with the quadrupole operator. Applying the technique to nuclei in the rare-earth region, we identify model-independent signatures of deformation and find that deformation effects persist to higher temperatures than the spherical-to-deformed shape phase-transition temperature of mean-field theory.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725; AC02-05CH11231; FG02-96ER40963; SC0008499; FG02-00ER411132; FG02-91ER40608
- OSTI ID:
- 1565374
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1181046
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 26; ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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