A study of some aspects of the nuclear structure in the even–even Yb isotopes

The medium-to-heavy mass ytterbium isotopes ( ^70Yb ) in the rare-earth mass region are known to be well-deformed nuclei, which can be populated to very high spins. Spectroscopic information becomes scarcer as the neutron number increases, impeding the understanding of nuclear structure in this mass region, where interesting phenomena, such as shape coexistence, have been predicted. In this work we attempt a holistic approach to investigate existing experimental data in ^164-178Yb by means of data systematics and new theoretical calculations with well-established models. In this line of study, energy levels, deformation parameters β _2 , reduced transition probabilities B ( E 2) and transition quadrupole moments Q are calculated by employing: the Phenomenological Model, the Interacting Boson Model (IBM-1), the Finite-Range Droplet Model, the Hartree–Fock–BCS Model with MSk7 force, the Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov Model with Gogny D1S force, the Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov Model with UNEDF1, the Relativistic Hartree–Bogoliubov Model with the covariant energy density functional NL3 ^* , the Proxy SU(3) and the Pseudo SU(3) models. In addition, numerical results for energy ratios for the Yb isotopes with the Exactly Separable Davidson (ESD), Exactly Separable Morse, Exactly Separable Woods Saxon, Deformation Dependent Mass Davidson (DDMD) and Deformation-Dependent Mass Kratzer (DDMK) analytical solutions of the Bohr Hamiltonian have been obtained. All results are compared to data and used further as benchmarks to provide guidance for experimental nuclear structure studies in the neutron-rich side of the nuclear chart around A=180 . An overall good agreement was found between available adopted data and theoretical predictions.