Lifetime of collective isospin rotations of a quantum meson field - art. no. 076006

We calculate the lifetime of the collective isospin rotating solutions whic h have been found recently in the case of a quantum N-component meson field with exact O(N) symmetry. For this purpose Ne take into account the small breaking of the O(N) symmetry associated with the nonvanishing mass of the pion. This term induces a coupling between collective rotations and intrins ic meson excitations. We evaluate the associated damping time in the framew ork of linear response theory. We find damping times of about 40 fm/c, i.e. , substantially longer than reaction times.