Shell structure and pairing for interacting fermions in a trap

Abstract

The shell structures for weakly interacting fermions in harmonic oscillator traps at zero temperature undergo several transitions depending on the number of particles in the trap and their interaction strength. Calculations of the one and two particle spectra give the pairing gaps, and the many particle state is constructed by the seniority scheme. For sufficiently few particles, $N\la 10^4$, the pairing field exceeds the mean-field splitting of single particle levels at the Fermi surface and the greater number of almost degenerate states due to the SU(3) symmetry in the harmonic oscillator shell lead to {\it supergaps}. Deformation and rotation are also discussed.