COLLECTIVE ADIABATIC APPROACH TO SYSTEMS WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF NUCLEONS

A collective adiabatic approach is used to describe the most complex c hannel of disintegration of the heaviest p-shell nucleus (disintegrati on of O-16 into four alpha particles). The method of random walks on a hypersphere is developed in terms of cluster variables. In contrast t o the method of hyperspherical functions that employs the basis of pot ential harmonics, the cluster approximation describes correctly the en ergy and the radius of the ground state of the O-16 nucleus. The mathe matical formalism developed in this study can be useful in describing microscopically the discrete and continuous spectra of systems involvi ng large numbers of particles.