Nuclear Shell Structure and Chaotic Dynamics in Hexadecapole Deformation

Abstract

The effect of an axially symmetric hexadecapole term is investigated in a strongly deformed quadrupole potential. While the system is nonintegrable and shows significant chaotic behaviour classically, the quantum mechanical treatment not only produces a general smoothing effect with regard to chaos but even yields a pronounced shell structure at certain hexadecapole strength parameter values for oblate and prolate deformation.

RevTeX + 4 figs. available from the authors, to appear in Phys.Rev.C