Variational approach to anharmonic collective motion

We derive large-amplitude collective equations of motion from the variational principle for the time-dependent Schroedinger equation. These equations reduce to the well-known diabatic formulas for vibrational frequencies in the small amplitude limit. The finite amplitude expression allows departures from harmonic behavior of giant resonances to be simply estimated. The relative shift of the second phonon falls with nuclear mass A as A^(-4/3) in the three modes we consider: monopole, dipole, and quadrupole. Numerically the effect is very small in heavy nuclei, as was found with other approaches.