A solvable model for octupole phonons

Abstract: A solvable model is proposed for the description of octupole phonons in closed-shell nuclei, formulated in terms of shell-model par-ticle--hole excitations. With some simple assumptions concerning single-particle energies and two-body interactions, closed expressions are derived for the energy and wave function of the octupole phonon. In particular, it is shown that the components of the octupole phonon are proportional to Wigner $3j$ coefficients. This analytic wave function is proven to be exactly valid in light nuclei, which have $LS$ shell closures that coincide with those of the three-dimensional harmonic oscillator, and to be valid to a good approximation in heavier nuclei, which have $jj$ shell closures due to the spin--orbit interaction. The properties of the solvable model are compared with the results of a realistic shell-model calculation for $^{208}$Pb.