A particle-number conserving microscopic approach to octupole deformation of normal deformed and superdeformed states in 194Pb

The left-right asymmetric deformation of normal deformed (ND) and superdeformed (SD) states of Pb-194 has been investigated in the framework of the parity-symmetry projection of the highly truncated diagonalization approach (HTDA), which is suited to treat the correlations in an explicitly particle-number conserving microscopic approach. A Skyrme energy density functional using the SIII and SkM* interactions has been considered to treat the particle-hole channel, whereas a density-independent delta force has been adopted for the residual interaction. The obtained results are compared with previous approaches. The calculated octupole phonon excitation energy is found to be in good qualitative agreement with available data in the ND state.