Robustness of pair structures for nuclear yrast states*

Abstract

Abstract In this study, we investigate the robustness of pair structures for nuclear yrast states, that is, whether the structures of relevant collective pairs as building blocks of different yrast states are the same. We focus on deformed and transitional nuclei and study the yrast states of Si, Cr, and Xe, whose experimental values are 2.60, 2.40, and 2.16, respectively, using the nucleon-pair approximation (NPA) and shell-model effective interactions. For each yrast state, we consider optimized pair structures to be those providing the energy minimum for this state. To find the minimum, many full NPA calculations are performed with varying pair structures, and the numerical optimization procedure of the conjugate gradient method is implemented. Our results suggest that optimized pair structures remain the same for all states within a rotational band of a deformed nucleus. Our results also suggest that after backbending, that is, changing of the intrinsic state, the structure of the S pair, which is essential to build the monopole pairing correlation, remains approximately unchanged, whereas the structures of the non-S pairs, which are essential to build the quadrupole correlation, change significantly.