Study of ground-state bands in Er and Yb nuclei with N ≥ 100

Nuclei in the rare-earth region are known to be strongly deformed and show rotational bands up to high spins. Ground state and high spin states of Yb and Er isotopes (N >= 100) have been studied using the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approach as well as the projected shell model. A large number of quasiparticle bands are observed in these nuclei and the present study explores the possible origins of some of them. Projected shell model with variable pairing can provide a good description of the ground-state bands up to very high spins.