Professor Alan Goodman is the leading practitioner in the USA of research regarding the properties of nuclei at high excitation energy. He has been and is at the forefront of the use of the finite-temperature Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov cranking theory in nuclear physics. He proposes to use this theory to calculate the properties of rare- earth and actinide nuclei as functions of the temperature or excitation energy of the nucleus. Statistical fluctuations of the shape around the equilibrium deformation will also be calculated, and phase transitions induced by heating and rotation will be studied. Professor Goodman is at the forefront of research regarding the properties of nuclei which are simultaneously rotating and being heated. He is a pioneer theorist in this area and is virtually the only U.S. researcher engaged in questions of nuclear structure at high excitation energies. Goodman's research will provide information about the role of fluctuations around the equilibrium deformation in nuclei and about phase transitions induced by heating and rotation. This is important work, since nuclear behavior at finite temperatures will be an area of great interest in nuclear physics in the coming years.
