Dynamics of density fluctuations in a non-Markovian Boltzmann- Langevin model

Abstract

In the course of the past few years, the nuclear Boltzmann-Langevin (BL)model has emerged as a promising microscopic model for nuclear dynamics at intermediate energies. The BL model goes beyond the much employed Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) model, and hence it provides a basis for describing dynamics of density fluctuations and addressing processes exhibiting spontaneous symmetry breaking and catastrophic transformations in nuclear collisions, such as induced fission and multifragmentation. In these standard models, the collision term is treated in a Markovian approximation by assuming that two-body collisions are local in both space and time, in accordance with Boltzmann`s original treatment. This simplification is usually justified by the fact that the duration of a two-body collision is short on the time scale characteristic of the macroscopic evolution of the system. As a result, transport properties of the collective motion has then a classical character. However, when the system possesses fast collective modes with characteristic energies that are not small in comparision with the temperature, then the quantum-statistical effects are important and the standard Markovian treatment is inadequate. In this case, it is necessary to improve the one-body transport model by including the memory effect due to the finite duration of two-body collisions. First we briefly describe the non-Markovian extension of the BL model by including the finite memory time associated with two-body collisions. Then, using this non-Markovian model in a linear response framework, we investigate the effect of the memory time on the agitation of unstable modes in nuclear matter in the spinodal zone, and calculate the collisional relaxation rates of nuclear collective vibrations.