A NEW LARGE AMPLITUDE COLLECTIVE MOTION IN NUCLEI: CLUSTERS AS SOLITONS ON THE NUCLEAR SURFACE

Abstract

Based on the liquid drop model, by including nonlinear terms in the hydrodynamic equations, we show that stable solitons can exist on the nuclear surface of 208 Pb or dose to it, this being the most rigid double magic spherical nucleus. The shell effects related with this nucleus lead to a new minimum in the total potential energy. In order to connect this minimum with the cluster decays, which are spontaneous decays, we choose the corresponding energy to be degenerate with the ground state minimum. A new coexistence model consisting of the usual shell model and a cluster-like model describing a soliton moving on the nuclear surface is obtained. The corresponding amplitudes describe excellently the experimental spectroscopic factors for cluster decays.