A stochastic mean-field approach for nuclear dynamics

We propose a microscopic stochastic approach to improve description of nuclear dynamics beyond the mean-field approximation at low energies. It is shown that, for small amplitude fluctuations, the proposed model gives a result for the dispersion of a one-body observable that is identical to the result obtained previously through a variational approach. Furthermore, by projecting the proposed stochastic mean-field evolution on a collective path, a generalized Langevin equation is derived for collective variable, which incorporates one-body dissipation and one-body fluctuation mechanism in accordance with quantal fluctuation-dissipation relation. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.