Porter-Thomas distribution in unstable many-body systems

Abstract: We use the continuum shell model approach to explore the resonance width distribution in unstable many-body systems. The single-particle nature of a decay, the few-body character of the interaction Hamiltonian, and collectivity that emerges in non-stationary systems due to the coupling to the continuum of reaction states are discussed. Correlations between structures of the parent and daughter nuclear systems in the common Fock space are found to result in deviations of decay width statistics from the Porter-Thomas distribution.