Microscopic Structure of Rotational Damping

The damping of collective rotational motion is studied microscopically, making use of shell model calculations based on the cranked Nilsson deformed mean-field and on residual two-body interactions, and focusing on the shape of the gamma-gamma correlation spectra and on its systematic behavior. It is shown that the spectral shape is directly related to the damping width of collective rotation, \\Gammarot, and to the spreading width of many-particle many-hole configurations, \\Gammamu. The rotational damping width is affected by the shell structure, and is very sensitive to the position of the Fermi surface, besides mass number, spin and deformation. This produces a rich variety of features in the rotational damping phenomena.