Q-phonon scheme in the collective nuclear model

The Q-phonon scheme developed on the basis of the algebraic collective nuclear model is discussed. It is shown that, within this scheme, low-lying collective states of even-even nuclei can be described to a precision higher than 90% of the norm by using one or, at maximum, two components of the Q-phonon basis constructed by applying a fixed number of the quadrupole operators Q to the exact ground state of the system. Various applications of this approximate scheme are discussed. It is shown that, by using this scheme, the relations between several E2-transition probabilities or between the energies of the collective states can be derived. It is also shown that the Q-phonon scheme can be used to extract information about the equilibrium shapes of nuclei and their fluctuations from data on the E2-transition probabilities.