EVIDENCE FOR PHASE TRANSITIONAL BEHAVIOR OF EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI FROM DIFFERENTIAL OBSERVABLES

Following recent discussions of critical phase transitional behavior of nuclei, additional data are collected and used to test if there is further evidence supporting such phenomena. Data from nuclear masses, radii, and E2 transition rates are used to construct differential observables. Inspection of these for the rare earth region shows that they exhibit the characteristic phase transitional behavior found in condensed matter and thermodynamic systems, namely, nearly constant values before the critical point, and a sharp change in the critical region, followed by a different set of values after the critical point.