We show that the Liquid Drop Model is best suited to describe the masses of
prolate deformed nuclei than of spherical nuclei. To this end three Liquid Drop
Mass formulas are employed to describe nuclear masses of eight sets of nuclei
with similar quadrupole deformations. It is shown that they are able to fit the
measured masses of prolate deformed nuclei with an RMS smaller than 750 keV,
while for the spherical nuclei the RMS is, in the three cases, larger than 2000
keV. The RMS of the best fit of the masses of semi-magic nuclei is also larger
than 2000 keV. The parameters of the three models are studied, showing that the
surface symmetry term is the one which varies the most from one group of nuclei
to another. In one model, isospin dependent terms are also found to exhibit
strong changes. The inclusion of shell effects allows for better fits, which
continue to be better in the prolate deformed nuclei regionComment: 10 pages, 8 tables, Proc. of the XXXIV Nuclear Physics Symposium,
January 4-7 2011, Cocoyoc, Morelos, Mexico. IOP Journal of Physics:
Conference Series (in press
