Landau theory of shape phase transitions in the cranked interacting boson model

Landau theory of phase transitions is applied to quadrupole shapes of rotating atomic nuclei within the interacting boson model (IBM) with cranking. It is shown that the coherent-state method must be generalized to allow for non-Hermitian quadrupole tensors of the coherent-state coefficients, which results in important modifications of the cranking shape-phase diagram compared to previous non-IBM studies of rotating nuclei. The parameter space has two surfaces of the first-order phase transitions and a curve of the second-order phase transition at their intersection. The phase structure of the cranked IBM closely resembles systems with competing superconducting and normal phases.