Nuclear viscosity and widths of giant resonances

We write down a set of coupled hydrodynamic equations of the Navier-Stokes type which describe the motion of two compressible, viscous nuclear fluids. The solutions of these equations give rise to giant resonances of both isoscalar and isovector type. The viscosity terms in the equations are responsible for the damping of these resonances. Within this framework we obtain expressions for the width of the resonances as a function of the mass number A, and relations between the widths and the excitation energies for various multipolarities (J = 0⁺, 1^-, 2⁺, 3^-, 4⁺), and isospins (T = 0,1). The A dependence of the calculated widths exhibit the experimental trends of the giant dipole and isoscalar quadrupole widths. Also, as a result of the calculation we obtain estimates of the values of viscosity coefficients in nuclei.