Deformation effects on the coexistence between neutron-proton and particle like pairing in N=Z medium mass nuclei

TL;DR

This study investigates how nuclear deformation influences the competition between neutron-proton and like-particle pairing in N=Z medium mass nuclei, revealing that deformation generally reduces pairing correlations and favors isovector pairing dominance.

Contribution

It combines self-consistent mean-field and shell-model techniques to analyze deformation effects on pairing correlations, including both simple and sophisticated interaction models.

Findings

Deformation reduces pairing correlations due to changes in single-particle spectra.

Isovector pairing consistently dominates over isoscalar pairing regardless of deformation.

Deformation impacts the residual pairing matrix elements and the spin-orbit interaction effects.

Abstract

A model combining self-consistent mean-field and shell-model techniques is used to study the competition between particle like and proton-neutron pairing correlations in fp-shell even-even self-conjugate nuclei. Results obtained using constant two-body pairing interactions as well as more sophisticated interactions are presented and discussed. The standard BCS calculations are systematically compared with more refined approaches including correlation effects beyond the independent quasi-particle approach. The competition between proton-neutron correlations in the isoscalar and isovector channels is also analyzed, as well as their dependence on the deformation properties. Besides the expected role of the spin-orbit interaction and particle number conservation, it is shown that deformation leads to a reduction of the pairing correlations. This reduction originates from the change of the single-particle spectrum and from a quenching of the residual pairing matrix elements. The competition between isoscalar and isovector pairing in the deuteron transfer is finally addressed. Although a strong dependence the isovector pairing correlations with respect to nuclear deformation is observed, they always dominate over the isoscalar ones.