Microscopic description of giant resonances in highly excited nuclei

Giant resonances of general multipolarity in highly excited nuclei, which are produced in compound nuclear and deep inelastic heavy ion reactions, are described microscopically in the finite temperature linear response formalism. The linear response function is calculated in the finite temperature (FT) quasi-particle RPA approximation (FT--HFB--RPA) and is based on the corresponding self-consistent quasi-particle basis (FT--HFB). The theory is derived from the small amplitude limit of FT--TDHFB. The inclusion of cranking constraints allows the investigation of giant resonances in nuclei with large intrinsic excitation energy and high spin. A schematic model for the FT--HFB--RPA is developed and applied to the isovector giant dipole resonance in hot spherical nuclei. It is shown that the energy of the resonance depends only weakly on temperature in these systems. the experimentally observed lowering of the giant mode in highly excited nuclei is to be attributed to different effects. The description of resonance damping lies beyond the scope of the random phase approximation. Possible extensions in this direction and qualitative features of the width of giant resonances at finite temperature are discussed