Interplay of seniority and signature in 48Cr-vanishing wave function components

Most works on seniority in nuclear physics involve particles of one kind-only proton or only neutrons. However, we had previously observed that in a single j shell calculation for [Formula: see text]Cr (four [Formula: see text] protons and 4 [Formula: see text] neutrons), a quantum number emerges that can be assigned to a given wave function, namely [Formula: see text]. A given column vector will either have [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text]. This is exclusive to mid-shell nuclei. But there is more. There is another quantum number common to all [Formula: see text] nuclei [Formula: see text]Ti, [Formula: see text]V and [Formula: see text]Cr. This leads to additional zeros in the components of the column vectors.