Critical-point symmetry in a finite system

At a critical point of a second-order phase transition the intrinsic energy surface is flat and there is no stable minimum value of the deformation. However, for a finite system, we show that there is an effective deformation which can describe the dynamics at the critical point. This effective deformation is determined by minimizing the energy surface after projection onto the appropriate symmetries. We derive analytic expressions for energies and quadrupole rates which provide good estimates for these observables at the critical point.