Pseudo SU(3) Model and Abnormal Parity States

The most important features of the pseudo SU(3) model are reviewed. This description of heavy deformed nuclei is based on pseudo spin symmetry, and is able to correctly predict the collective spectra and their transition amplitudes, using appropriate effective charges. It also gives a very good description of the exotic double beta decay, a hard test of any nuclear model. The simplest pseudo SU(3) assumptions describe nucleons in the abnormal parity states as having seniority zero. This idea is very useful as a mathematical simplification, and is also able to give a nice description of the backbending phenomena, but has been challenged in a recent study about effective charges and $BE2(0^+_1 \rightarrow 2^+_1)$ systematics. We carefully checked this statement and conclude that the seniority zero approach is a formal way of assign abnormal parity nucleons a passive role. The contribution of the abnormal parity nucleons to the nuclear quadrupole moments is finite but only a fraction of their asymptotic Nilsson values.