The many approaches that have been pursued in seeking an understanding of nuclear rotational dynamics are reviewed and reassessed with a view to their development in the light of recent progress and the research tools that are now available. A motivation for this review is the widespread observation of nuclear shape coexistence and sequences of rotational states in all regions of the nuclear periodic table combined with the recognition that the study of the rotational dynamics of quantum fluids has led to significant advances in the quantum theory of many-boson systems. Recent experimental investigations of the rotational dynamics of a low-temperature $^6$Li gas indicate that its slow rotational flows are likewise the irrotational flows of a superfluid. In this context, the dynamics of rotating nuclei are of fundamental interest because the nucleus is a unique zero-temperature finite many-fermion quantum system. A promising approach is provided by algebraic mean-field theory which, as its name suggests, is a combination of algebraic and mean-field methods. Static mean-field theories play a central role in many-body theory by defining optimal independent-particle and independent quasi-particle basis states for the quantum mechanics of many-fermion systems. Their time-dependent extensions also lead, in the small-amplitude random-phase approximation, to the quantisation of the classical normal-mode vibrations of many-fermion systems about their static equilibrium states. This review shows that mean-field methods become significantly more powerful when combined with algebraic methods and an appropriate coupling scheme for the nuclear shell model.
The many approaches that have been pursued in seeking an understanding of nuclear rotational dynamics are reviewed and reassessed with a view to their development in the light of recent progress and the research tools that are now available. A motivation for this review is the widespread observation of nuclear shape coexistence and sequences of rotational states in all regions of the nuclear periodic table combined with the recognition that the study of the rotational dynamics of quantum fluids has led to significant advances in the quantum theory of many-boson systems. Recent experimental investigations of the rotational dynamics of a low-temperature 6Li gas indicate that its slow rotational flows are likewise the irrotational flows of a superfluid. In this context, the dynamics of rotating nuclei are of fundamental interest because the nucleus is a unique zero-temperature finite many-fermion quantum system. A promising approach is provided by algebraic mean-field theory which, as its name suggests, is a combination of algebraic and mean-field methods. Static mean-field theories play a central role in many-body theory by defining optimal independent-particle and independent quasi-particle basis states for the quantum mechanics of many-fermion systems. Their time-dependent extensions also lead, in the small-amplitude random-phase approximation, to the quantisation of the classical normal-mode vibrations of many-fermion systems about their static equilibrium states. This review shows that mean-field methods become significantly more powerful when combined with algebraic methods and an appropriate coupling scheme for the nuclear shell model.
The three-dimensional harmonic oscillator plays a central role in nuclear physics. It provides the underlying structure of the independent-particle shell model and gives rise to the dynamical group structures on which models of nuclear collective motion are based. It is shown that the three-dimensional harmonic oscillator features a rich variety of coherent states, including vibrations of the monopole, dipole, and quadrupole types, and rotations of the rigid flow, vortex flow, and irrotational flow types. Nuclear collective states exhibit all of these flows. It is also shown that the coherent state representations, which have their origins in applications to the dynamical groups of the simple harmonic oscillator, can be extended to vector coherent state representations with a much wider range of applicability. As a result, coherent state theory and vector coherent state theory become powerful tools in the application of algebraic methods in physics.
This thesis is a collection of theoretical investigations into different aspects of the broad subject of quantum many-body theory. The results are grouped into three main parts, which in turn are divided into separate self-contained sections. Some of the work is presented in the form of published papers and papers that have been submitted for publication. The first section of Part A introduces some of the concepts involved in many-body problems, by developing methods to evaluate expectation values of the form . In the rest of Part A I consider collective excitations of finite quantum systems. The calculations are confined to nuclei because the results can then be compared with the extensive investigations that have been made into collective nuclear modes. In Section AII, wavefunctions are proposed for rotational excitations of even-even nuclei. Both isoscalar and isovector nuclear modes are discussed. In particular, the l2,m> isoscalar states are investigated for both spherical and deformed even-even nuclei, and the simplest isovector wavefunction is shown to give a good description of the giant dipole resonance. In section AIII wavefunctions are proposed for compressional vibrational states of spherical nuclei. Section AIV discusses sum rules for nuclear transitions of a given electric multipolarity. It is found that the 2+ and 1- states investigated in section AII and all but one of the vibrational states discussed in AIII each exhaust a large part of the appropriate sum rule. In Part B I consider the problem of how to describe flow in quantum fluids. In particular, we want to be able to identify the physical motion represented by any given many-body wavefunction. Section BI derives a guantum mechanical velocity field for a many-body system, paying special attention to the need for a quantum continuity equation. It is found that when the wavefunction has the usual time dependence e-iwt , that the quantum velocity formula averages over all oscillatory motion, so that much of the physical nature of the flow field is lost. In section BII a particular wavefunction is proposed to represent the quantum excitation corresponding to any given potential flow field. The results obtained by considering specific examples are very encouraging. In Part C I investigate the properties of surfaces. Section CI presents a theoretical description of the tension, energy and thickness of a classical liquid-vapour interface. In section CII the classical results are extended to describe the surface of a quantum system, namely superfluid helium four. Problems occur for the quantum system if the correlations arising from the zero-point-motion of the phonon modes are included in the ground state wavefunction. Finally, in section CIII discuss generalized virial theorems that give the change in the free energy of a system undergoing an infinitesimal deformation. For example, a particular deformation gives the expression used in CII, for the surface tension of a plane quantum surface.
This thesis is a collection of theoretical investigations into different aspects of the broad subject of quantum many-body theory. The results are grouped into three main parts, which in turn are divided into separate self-contained sections. Some of the work is presented in the form of published papers and papers that have been submitted for publication. The first section of Part A introduces some of the concepts involved in many-body problems, by developing methods to evaluate expectation values of the form . In the rest of Part A I consider collective excitations of finite quantum systems. The calculations are confined to nuclei because the results can then be compared with the extensive investigations that have been made into collective nuclear modes. In Section AII, wavefunctions are proposed for rotational excitations of even-even nuclei. Both isoscalar and isovector nuclear modes are discussed. In particular, the l2,m> isoscalar states are investigated for both spherical and deformed even-even nuclei, and the simplest isovector wavefunction is shown to give a good description of the giant dipole resonance. In section AIII wavefunctions are proposed for compressional vibrational states of spherical nuclei. Section AIV discusses sum rules for nuclear transitions of a given electric multipolarity. It is found that the 2+ and 1- states investigated in section AII and all but one of the vibrational states discussed in AIII each exhaust a large part of the appropriate sum rule. In Part B I consider the problem of how to describe flow in quantum fluids. In particular, we want to be able to identify the physical motion represented by any given many-body wavefunction. Section BI derives a guantum mechanical velocity field for a many-body system, paying special attention to the need for a quantum continuity equation. It is found that when the wavefunction has the usual time dependence e-iwt , that the quantum velocity formula averages over all oscillatory motion, so that much of the physical nature of the flow field is lost. In section BII a particular wavefunction is proposed to represent the quantum excitation corresponding to any given potential flow field. The results obtained by considering specific examples are very encouraging. In Part C I investigate the properties of surfaces. Section CI presents a theoretical description of the tension, energy and thickness of a classical liquid-vapour interface. In section CII the classical results are extended to describe the surface of a quantum system, namely superfluid helium four. Problems occur for the quantum system if the correlations arising from the zero-point-motion of the phonon modes are included in the ground state wavefunction. Finally, in section CIII discuss generalized virial theorems that give the change in the free energy of a system undergoing an infinitesimal deformation. For example, a particular deformation gives the expression used in CII, for the surface tension of a plane quantum surface.
This thesis is a collection of theoretical investigations into different aspects of the broad subject of quantum many-body theory. The results are grouped into three main parts, which in turn are divided into separate self-contained sections. Some of the work is presented in the form of published papers and papers that have been submitted for publication. The first section of Part A introduces some of the concepts involved in many-body problems, by developing methods to evaluate expectation values of the form . In the rest of Part A I consider collective excitations of finite quantum systems. The calculations are confined to nuclei because the results can then be compared with the extensive investigations that have been made into collective nuclear modes. In Section AII, wavefunctions are proposed for rotational excitations of even-even nuclei. Both isoscalar and isovector nuclear modes are discussed. In particular, the l2,m> isoscalar states are investigated for both spherical and deformed even-even nuclei, and the simplest isovector wavefunction is shown to give a good description of the giant dipole resonance. In section AIII wavefunctions are proposed for compressional vibrational states of spherical nuclei. Section AIV discusses sum rules for nuclear transitions of a given electric multipolarity. It is found that the 2+ and 1- states investigated in section AII and all but one of the vibrational states discussed in AIII each exhaust a large part of the appropriate sum rule. In Part B I consider the problem of how to describe flow in quantum fluids. In particular, we want to be able to identify the physical motion represented by any given many-body wavefunction. Section BI derives a guantum mechanical velocity field for a many-body system, paying special attention to the need for a quantum continuity equation. It is found that when the wavefunction has the usual time dependence e-iwt , that the quantum velocity formula averages over all oscillatory motion, so that much of the physical nature of the flow field is lost. In section BII a particular wavefunction is proposed to represent the quantum excitation corresponding to any given potential flow field. The results obtained by considering specific examples are very encouraging. In Part C I investigate the properties of surfaces. Section CI presents a theoretical description of the tension, energy and thickness of a classical liquid-vapour interface. In section CII the classical results are extended to describe the surface of a quantum system, namely superfluid helium four. Problems occur for the quantum system if the correlations arising from the zero-point-motion of the phonon modes are included in the ground state wavefunction. Finally, in section CIII discuss generalized virial theorems that give the change in the free energy of a system undergoing an infinitesimal deformation. For example, a particular deformation gives the expression used in CII, for the surface tension of a plane quantum surface.
A variational derivation of the Liouville-von Neumann equation of quantum-statistical mechanics is presented, in order to formulate mean~field approximations appropriate to mixed states. The Hartree-Fock and the RPA at finite temperatures are particular cases of the general formalism. A thennal boson expansion is defined, which allows us to describe anhannonic motion around a thennal excited state. In a numerical application on the basis of the Lipkin model, temperature-dependent phase transitions are observed. I. Introduction Studies of the decay of the compound nuclei formed in heavy-ion reactions have added a new dimension to the field of nuclear structure. The temperature of the compound nucleus at a given excitation energy rises from zero at the yrast state to a few MeV at angular momentum zero. Recently the decay of high-excited states above the yrast line, like the giant dipole resonance, has been observed 1,2). These measurements were carried out making use of sum-spectrometer multiplicity techniques, thus allowing to determine the average angular momentum of the system and from this knowledge the temperature of the nucleus. One can then study experimentally the nuclear structure at finite values of both the angular momentum and temperature, and the corresponding theoretical analysis of giant resonances above thermal excited states is now the object of intensive research 3-7). On the other hand, the observation of deep-inelastic reactions has been an important sourCe of information on the behaviour of nuclei under strong external fields. In these reactions the two interacting ions emerge after the collision with approximatley the same charge and mass, but having lost a large fraction of the energy and angular momentum of relative motion they had in the entrance channel (cf. e.g. ref. 8) and references therein). Different mechanisms play a role in these reactions, like the transfer of particles and the excitation of giant resonances (cf. ref. 9) and references therein). Because these vibrations have a damping width the energy and angular momentum absorbed through them into the nuclei lead to a finite temperature and to rigid rotation. This
The solution of the quantum many-body problem for medium-mass nuclei using realistic nuclear interactions poses a superbe challenge for nuclear structure research. Because an exact solution can only be provided for the lightest nuclei, one has to rely on approximate solutions when proceeding to heavier systems. Over the past years, tremendous progress has been made in the development and application of systematically improvable expansion methods and an accurate description of nuclear observables has become viable up to mass number A≈100. While closed-shell systems are consistently described via a plethora of different many-body methods, the extension to genuine open-shell systems still remains a major challenge and up to now there is no \textit{ab initio} many-body method which applies equally well to systems with even and odd mass numbers. The goal of this thesis is the development and implementation of innovative perturbative approaches with genuine open-shell capabilities. This requires the extension of well-known single-reference approaches to more general vacua. In this work we choose two complementary routes for the usage of generalized reference states. First, we derive a new \emph{ab initio} approach based on multi-configurational reference states that are conveniently derived from a prior no-core shell model calculation. Perturbative corrections are derived via second-order many-body perturbation theory, thus, merging configuration interaction and many-body perturbation theory. The generality of this ansatz enables for a treatment of medium-mass systems with arbitrary mass number, as well as the extension to low-lying excited states such that ground and excited states are treated on an equal footing. In a complementary approach, we use reference states that break a symmetry of the underlying Hamiltonian. In the simplest case this corresponds to the expansion around a particle-number-broken Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov vacuum which is obtained from a mean-field calculation. Pairing correlations are already absorbed in the reference state. The mild scaling allows for investigations up to tin isotopic chains. All benchmarks were performed using state-of-the-art chiral two- plus three-nucleon interactions thus allowing for a universal description of nuclear observables in the medium-mass regime.