Abstract
We present an experimental investigation of thermal phase transition in atomic nuclei by measuring the rays from the decay of the giant dipole resonance in populated by using the reaction . The systematic measurement confirms the prolate shape, similar to the ground-state value, till temperature MeV. Moreover, the present data, together with the previous experimental studies, point towards the persistence of prolate shape with deformation similar to that of the ground state till MeV. In addition, the emergence and evolution of thermal fluctuations observed directly in the experiment suggest that the sharp phase transition from prolate to near spherical at MeV will not be evident experimentally due to statistical fluctuations owing to the finite size of the nucleus.
- Received 6 November 2018
- Revised 9 January 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.99.024315
©2019 American Physical Society