Systematic behaviour of the giant dipole resonance in highly excited nuclei

Abstract

A study of the statistical decay of the giant dipole resonance (GDR) built on excited nuclear states provides information on nuclear properties at finite temperature and moderate spin. The results of a systematic investigation of GDR properties at high excitation covering a wide mass range, A approximately 40-170 are presented. The observed resonance strengths and mean resonance energies vary smoothly as a function of mass and are in agreement with the properties of the ground-state GDR. The widths and resonance shapes of the GDR in highly excited nuclei reflect the deformation of the nucleus at finite temperature and spin.