PARTICLE NUMBER FLUCTUATIONS IN THE MOMENT OF INERTIA

The nonphysical effects due to the false components introduced by the nonconservation of the particle number in the BCS states are eliminated in the theoretical values of the moment of inertia calculated by the microscopic cranking model. The states of the system are obtained by successive projections of the BCS states in the occupation number space. The moment of inertia appears then as a limit of a rapidly convergent sequence. The errors due to this false component have been numerically estimated and appear to be important both in the BCS states and in the matrix elements of the angular momentum. The predicted values of the moment of inertia satisfactorily reproduce the experimental data over a large number of nuclei within rare-earth and actinide regions with discrepancies ranging from 0.1% to 8%.