Determination of the collective Hamiltonian in a self-consistent theory of large amplitude adiabatic motion

Abstract
The starting point for most studies of large amplitude collective motion in nuclear physics, the time-dependent Hartree-Fock equations, can be mapped to a problem in classical Hamiltonian mechanics, which is the form of the problem studied in this work. For a system with N degrees of freedom, collective motion is identified with motion completely confined to a surface in K dimensions. Conditions for the existence of such decoupled surfaces are worked out and a procedure for constructing them is formulated. For most practical problems, where such surfaces do not strictly exist, a concept of approximate decoupling is developed and a test of its accuracy is described. Our results generalize the method of maximum global decoupling found in the earlier literature.