The second RPA description for the decay of the one-phonon nuclear collective states at finite temperature

The zero-temperature second RPA is generalized to finite temperatures through the use of the method of linearization of the equations of motion. After elimination of the quadruples, for low enough temperatures and within the subspace spanned by the doubles, a proper symmetrization yields an eigenvalue equation which exhibits formal properties like the simple RPA. From this second RPA eigenvalue equation, a closed formula for the spreading width of an isolated collective state is extracted. The second RPA can be recast in the form of a generalized collision term and be compared with the method of the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the two-body Green function. However, the second RPA method (and results) contrasts with the approach (and corresponding results) of the Boltzmann collision term, which is usually viewed as the appropriate agent for nuclear dissipation.