ON THE MACROSCOPIC LIMIT OF NUCLEAR DISSIPATION

The Landau-Vlasov equation is applied to a slab of width L. This geome try is introduced to simulate somehow the finiteness of real nuclei bu t to allow for analytical solutions, nevertheless. We focus on the dam ping of low-frequency surface modes and discuss their friction coeffic ient. For this quantity we study the macroscopic limit as defined by L --> infinity. We demonstrate that the same result can be obtained for finite L by applying an appropriate frequency smoothing, if only the smearing interval is sufficiently large. The apparent, but important c onsequences are discussed which this result will have for the understa nding of the nature of dissipation in real nuclei.