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

Abstract

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