GIANT MONOPOLE RESONANCES AND THE COMPRESSIBILITY OF NUCLEAR-MATTER

The procedures to deduce the incompressibility modulus of nuclear matt er, K-0, from the measured energies of the Isoscalar Giant Monopole Re sonances, E(GMR), are critically reviewed. A simple model is developed in which the isoscalar density oscillations in finite nuclei are desc ribed as being due to the coupling of two modes: the bulk (scaling) mo de and the surface mode. Two energy solutions are obtained for the cou pled mode: the low energy solution, which is presumably the one observ ed experimentally, and the high energy one, well above the range of th e present experiments.