We investigate the shell structure of bubble nuclei in simple phenomenological shell models and study their binding energy as a function of the radii and of the number of neutron and protons using Strutinsky's method. Shell effects come about, on the one hand, by the high degeneracy of levels with large angular momentum and, on the other, by the big energy gaps between states with a different number of radial nodes. Shell energies down to -40 MeV are shown to occur for certain magic nuclei.

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... mates demonstrate that the calculated shell effects for certain magic numbers of constituents are probably large enough to produce stability against fission, alpha-, and beta-decay. No bubble solutions are found for mass number A < 450.