Towards a practical approach for self-consistent large amplitude collective motion

We investigate the use of an operatorial basis in a self-consistent theory of large amplitude collective motion. For the example of the pairing-plus-quadrupole model, which has been studied previously at equilibrium, we show that a small set of carefully chosen state-dependent basis operators is sufficient to approximate the exact solution of the problem accurately. This approximation is used to study the interplay of quadrupole and pairing degrees of freedom along the collective path for realistic examples. We show how this leads to a viable calculational scheme for studying nuclear structure, and discuss the surprising role of pairing collapse.