Spherical to deformed shape transition in the nucleon-pair shell model

A study of the shape transition from spherical to axially deformed nuclei in the even Ce isotopes using the nucleon-pair approximation of the shell model is reported. As long as the structure of the dominant collective pairs is determined using a microscopic framework appropriate to deformed nuclei, the model is able to produce a shape transition. However, the resulting transition is too rapid, with nuclei that should be transitional being fairly well deformed, perhaps reflecting the need to maintain several pairs with each angular momentum.