Hot nuclei — Effective shapes and entrance channel effect

Abstract

The γ-decay of the Giant Dipole Resonance in hot rotating compound nuclei has provided valuable information on the nuclear structure at finite temperature. A number of experimental results showing that the nuclear shapes change with temperature and angular momentum are here reviewed. In particular we concentrate on the temperature interval from 1 to 2 MeV, rotational frequencies from 0.2 to 1.5 MeV and on nuclei in the mass regionsA≈160–170 andA≈110, characterized by the prolate-oblate and spherical-oblate phase transitions, respectively. The possibility to study the shapes involved in the compound nucleus formation is also discussed. For this purpose long formation times are required and the nucleus¹⁷⁰W formed with the reaction⁶⁰Ni+¹¹⁰Pd, here studied, seems to be a good candidate. The gamma and particle decays were compared to those of the reaction⁴⁸Ti+¹²²Te. The comparison shows that in average the energy of the α-particles is larger for the more symmetric reaction, consistent with longer formation times and larger deformations in the pre-equilibrium stage.