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Phase transitions in nuclear matter described by pseudospin Hamiltonians
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Phase transitions in nuclear matter described by pseudospin Hamiltonians

R. Gilmore and D.H. Feng
Nuclear physics. A, v 301(2)
1978

Abstract

Upper and lower bounds on the ground-state energy per nucleon E g N and the free energy per nucleon F(β) N are constructed for nuclear systems described by pseudospin Hamiltonians. In the limit of large numbers of nucleons these bounds become equal. A simple algorithm is developed for computing E g N , F(β) N and S N (entropy per nucleon) exactly in the N → ∞ limit. The values of E g N and F(β) N are obtained by computing the minimum value of associated potential functions h c and Φ. These potentials are constructed very simply from the pseudospin Hamiltonian. Groundstate energy phase transitions are determined by investigating how the minima of the potential h c change as a function of changing nuclear interaction parameters. Thermodynamic phase transitions are determined by investigating how the minima of the potential Φ change as a function of changing nuclear temperature. Concise conditions are given for the occurrence of a second-order phase transition of either type. These conditions define critical values of the nuclear interaction parameters at which a ground-state energy second-order phase transition occurs and the critical temperature at which a thermodynamic second-order phase transition occurs. A “crossover theorem” relates the occurrence of a ground-state energy phase transition to a thermodynamic phase transition.

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