Giant-dipole Resonance and the Deformation of Hot, Rotating Nuclei

The development of nuclear shapes under the extreme conditions of high spin and/or temperature is examined. Scaling properties are used to demonstrate universal properties of both thermal expectation values of nuclear shapes as well as the minima of the free energy, which can be used to understand the Jacobi transition. A universal correlation between the width of the giant dipole resonance and quadrupole deformation is found, providing a novel probe to measure the nuclear deformation in hot nuclei.Comment: 6 pages including 6 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. Revtex

A Particle number conserving shell-correction method

The shell correction method is revisited. Contrary to the traditional Strutinsky method, the shell energy is evaluated by an averaging over the number of particles and not over the single-particle energies, which is more consistent with the definition of the macroscopic energy. In addition, the smooth background is subtracted before averaging the sum of single-particle energies, which significantly improves the plateau condition and allows to apply the method also for nuclei close to the proton or neutron drip lines. A significant difference between the shell correction energy obtained with the traditional and the new method is found in particular for highly degenerated single-particle spectra (as i.e. in magic nuclei) while for deformed nuclei (where the degeneracy is lifted to a large extent) both estimates are close, except in the region of super or hyper-deformed states.Comment: 11 pages in LaTeX, 7 figure

Quantum and semiclassical study of magnetic anti-dots

We study the energy level structure of two-dimensional charged particles in inhomogeneous magnetic fields. In particular, for magnetic anti-dots the magnetic field is zero inside the dot and constant outside. Such a device can be fabricated with present-day technology. We present detailed semiclassical studies of such magnetic anti-dot systems and provide a comparison with exact quantum calculations. In the semiclassical approach we apply the Berry-Tabor formula for the density of states and the Borh-Sommerfeld quantization rules. In both cases we found good agreement with the exact spectrum in the weak magnetic field limit. The energy spectrum for a given missing flux quantum is classified in six possible classes of orbits and summarized in a so-called phase diagram. We also investigate the current flow patterns of different quantum states and show the clear correspondence with classical trajectories.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure

Connection between the "Strutinsky level density" and the semiclassical level density (published version)

We establish an analytical link between the level density obtained by means of the Strutinsky averaging method, and the semiclassical level density. This link occurs only in the so-called "asymptotic limit". It turns out that the Strutinsky method amounts to an approximation to the semiclassical method. This approximation contains an unavoidable remainder which constitutes an intrinsic noise in comparison to the semiclassical method. Thus, the "old" problem of the dependency of the Strutinsky procedure on the two free smoothing parameters of the averaging is intimately connected to this noise. On the other hand, we demonstrate that the noise of the method is small in the average density of states and in the average energy, whereas it might be non-negligible in the shell correction itself. In order to improve this method, we give a "rule" which consists simply of minimizing the relative error made on the average energy.Comment: 6 figure

Periodic-Orbit Bifurcations and Superdeformed Shell Structure

We have derived a semiclassical trace formula for the level density of the three-dimensional spheroidal cavity. To overcome the divergences occurring at bifurcations and in the spherical limit, the trace integrals over the action-angle variables were performed using an improved stationary phase method. The resulting semiclassical level density oscillations and shell-correction energies are in good agreement with quantum-mechanical results. We find that the bifurcations of some dominant short periodic orbits lead to an enhancement of the shell structure for "superdeformed" shapes related to those known from atomic nuclei.Comment: 4 pages including 3 figure

Uniform approximations for pitchfork bifurcation sequences

In non-integrable Hamiltonian systems with mixed phase space and discrete symmetries, sequences of pitchfork bifurcations of periodic orbits pave the way from integrability to chaos. In extending the semiclassical trace formula for the spectral density, we develop a uniform approximation for the combined contribution of pitchfork bifurcation pairs. For a two-dimensional double-well potential and the familiar H\'enon-Heiles potential, we obtain very good agreement with exact quantum-mechanical calculations. We also consider the integrable limit of the scenario which corresponds to the bifurcation of a torus from an isolated periodic orbit. For the separable version of the H\'enon-Heiles system we give an analytical uniform trace formula, which also yields the correct harmonic-oscillator SU(2) limit at low energies, and obtain excellent agreement with the slightly coarse-grained quantum-mechanical density of states.Comment: LaTeX, 31 pp., 18 figs. Version (v3): correction of several misprint

Semiclassical description of shell effects in finite fermion systems

A short survey of the semiclassical periodic orbit theory, initiated by M. Gutzwiller and generalized by many other authors, is given. Via so-called semiclassical trace formmulae, gross-shell effects in bound fermion systems can be interpreted in terms of a few periodic orbits of the corresponding classical systems. In integrable systems, these are usually the shortest members of the most degenerate families or orbits, but in some systems also less degenerate orbits can determine the gross-shell structure. Applications to nuclei, metal clusters, semiconductor nanostructures, and trapped dilute atom gases are discussed.Comment: LaTeX (revteX4) 6 pages; invited talk at Int. Conference "Finite Fermionic Systems: Nilsson Model 50 Years", Lund, Sweden, June 14-18, 200

Nuclear prolate-shape dominance with the Woods-Saxon potential

We study the prolate-shape predominance of the nuclear ground-state deformation by calculating the masses of more than two thousand even-even nuclei using the Strutinsky method, modified by Kruppa, and improved by us. The influences of the surface thickness of the single-particle potentials, the strength of the spin-orbit potential, and the pairing correlations are investigated by varying the parameters of the Woods-Saxon potential and the pairing interaction. The strong interference between the effects of the surface thickness and the spin-orbit potential is confirmed to persist for six sets of the Woods-Saxon potential parameters. The observed behavior of the ratios of prolate, oblate, and spherical nuclei versus potential parameters are rather different in different mass regions. It is also found that the ratio of spherical nuclei increases for weakly bound unstable nuclei. Differences of the results from the calculations with the Nilsson potential are described in detail.Comment: 16 pages, 17 figure

Closed orbits and spatial density oscillations in the circular billiard

We present a case study for the semiclassical calculation of the oscillations in the particle and kinetic-energy densities for the two-dimensional circular billiard. For this system, we can give a complete classification of all closed periodic and non-periodic orbits. We discuss their bifurcations under variation of the starting point r and derive analytical expressions for their properties such as actions, stability determinants, momentum mismatches and Morse indices. We present semiclassical calculations of the spatial density oscillations using a recently developed closed-orbit theory [Roccia J and Brack M 2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 200408], employing standard uniform approximations from perturbation and bifurcation theory, and test the convergence of the closed-orbit sum.Comment: LaTeX, 42 pp., 17 figures (24 *.eps files, 1 *.tex file); final version (v3) to be published in J. Phys.

Asymmetry and Spin-Orbit Effects in Binding Energy in the Effective Nuclear Surface Approximation

Isoscalar and isovector particle densities are derived analytically by using the approximation of a sharp edged nucleus within the local energy density approach with the proton-neutron asymmetry and spin-orbit effects. Equations for the effective nuclear-surface shapes as collective variables are derived up to the higher order corrections in the form of the macroscopic boundary conditions. The analytical expressions for the isoscalar and isovector tension coefficients of the nuclear surface binding energy and the finite-size corrections to the $\beta$ stability line are obtained.Comment: Submitted to International Journal of Modern Physics