Volume effects on nuclear shape transformations

The dependence of nuclear shape transition on changes in the nuclear volume in 24 Mg has been studied within the framework of the constrained finite temperature Hartree-Fock approximation. The deformation parameters β and γ are very sensitive to changes in the nuclear volume. A first-order shape transition in 24 Mg takes place at the temperature of 1 MeV and at the volume of Vc = 1.025 V0, where V0 is the zero temperature unconstrained volume of the system. We also show that a 2.5 % compression of the system causes the critical temperature of the deformed-to-spherical shape transition to shift downward by 0.7 MeV. Similarly a 2.5 % expansion of the system also yields a decrease in the critical temperature of 0.3 MeV. Meanwhile a compression of the system leads to a corresponding reduction in the magnitude of the level density, while an expansion increases its value only slightly