The phenomenon of shape coexistence in a nucleus is about the occurence of two different nuclear states with drastically different shapes, lying close in energy. It is commonly seen in the data, that such coexisting states manifest in specific nuclei, which lie within certain islands on the nuclear chart, the islands of shape coexistence. A recently introduced mechanism predicts that these islands derive from the coexistence of two different types of magic numbers: the harmonic oscillator and the spin-orbit like. The algebraic realization of the nuclear Shell Model, the Elliott SU(3) symmetry, along with its extension, the proxy-SU(3) symmetry , are used for the parameter-free theoretical predictions of the islands of shape coexistence
A mechanism for shape coexistence
