Classical phase space structure induced by spontaneous symmetry breaking

Abstract

The collective dynamics of a many-body system is described as a special case of low-energy quantum dynamics, occurring when the ground state breaks a continuous symmetry of the Hamiltonian. This approach is applied to the spontaneous breaking of the rotational symmetry of a nuclear Hamiltonian. It is shown that the excitation operator of the isovector low-lying angular oscillations in deformed nuclei is a linear combination between angular momentum operators, which generate static rotations, and "angle" operators, which generate the transition to a rotating frame.