SHELL CORRECTIONS FOR HEAVY AND SUPERHEAVY NUCLEI.

The shell and pairing correction energies are calculated for heavy and superheavy nuclei (SHN) by means of the Strutinsky's method. The single-particle (s.p.) energy levels are obtained from the diagonalization of the Woods-Saxon s.p. Hamiltonian in the deformed harmonic oscillator basis for both neutrons and protons. The residual pairing interaction is calculated by means of the usual Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) approximation. A two-dimensional deformation space describing axially and reflection-symmetric shapes of nuclei has been used. Based on the shell and pairing correction energies, the signatures of the magic numbers appear at the spherical shell closures Z = 82, 114, 164 and N = 126, 184, 228 and 308. There are also signatures for some other shell closures at, e.g., Z = 108 and N = 162 which appear only when the deformation degrees of freedom is taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]