S. Sarantopoulou¹, D. Bonatsos¹, I.E. Assimakis¹, N. Minkov², A. Martinou¹, R.B. Cakirli³, R.F. Casten^4,5, K. Blaum^6
1Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, National Centre for Scientific Research "Demokritos", GR-15310 Aghia Paraskevi, Attiki, Greece
²Institute of Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 72 Tzarigrad Road, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria
³Department of Physics, University of Istanbul, 34134 Istanbul, Turkey
⁴Wright Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
⁵Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, 640 South Shaw Lane, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA
⁶Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Abstract. Using a new approximate analytic parameter-free proxy-SU(3) scheme, simple predictions for the global feature of prolate dominance and for the locus of the prolate-oblate shape transition have been made and compared with empirical data. Emphasis is placed on the mechanism leading to the breaking of the particle-hole symmetry, which is instrumental in shaping up these predictions. It turns out that this mechanism is based on the SU(3) symmetry and the Pauli principle alone, without reference to any specific Hamiltonian.

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