Influence of shell structure on multipole pairing

Using the surface delta interaction as the generating two-body force, we investigate the interdependence between the composition of the multipole pair field and the multipole moments of the relevant single-particle states. A decrease of the quadrupole pair field is found in going from light to heavy rare earth nuclei. The inclusion of higher multipole moments shifts an existing backbend to higher frequency but when the force parameters are readjusted to reproduce the experimental odd-even mass difference the shift is strongly reduced. (orig.)