The traditional nuclear pairing problem is shown to be in one-to-one correspondence with a classical electrostatic problem in two dimensions. We make use of this analogy in a series of calculations in the tin region, showing that the extremely rich phenomenology that appears in this classical problem can provide interesting new insights into nuclear superconductivity.

• Received 25 July 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.062501