Spontaneous symmetry breaking and the dissipation of nuclear collective degrees of freedom at finite temperature.

Abstract

The critical temperature for the dissipation of the collective degrees of freedom has been determined in a quantum field theoretical description of the Elliott model in which the U(3) symmetry is spontaneously broken in such a manner that rotational invariance is preserved. Results for $^{20}\mathrm{Ne}$, with a reasonable choice of parameters, seem to indicate that this critical temperature lies below the liquid-to-gas critical temperature but above the temperature of deformed-to-spherical shape transitions which have been observed in finite temperature mean field calculations. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.