The ground-state deformations of the Ge isotopes are investigated in the framework of Gogny-Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) and Skyrme Hartree-Fock plus pairing in the BCS approximation. Five different Skyrme parametrizations are used to explore the influence of different effective masses and spin-orbit models. There is generally good agreement for binding energies and deformations (total quadrupole moment, triaxiality) with experimental data where available (i.e., in the valley of stability). All calculations agree in predicting a strong tendency for triaxial shapes in the Ge isotopes with only a few exceptions due to neutron (sub-)shell closures. The frequent occurrence of energetically very close shape isomers indicates that the underlying deformation energy landscape is very soft. The general triaxial softness of the Ge isotopes is demonstrated in the fully triaxial potential energy surface. The differences between the forces play an increasing role with increasing neutron number. This concerns particularly the influence of the spin-orbit model, which has a visible effect on the trend of binding energies towards the drip line. Different effective mass plays an important role in predicting the quadrupole and triaxial deformations. The pairing strength only weakly affects binding energies and total quadrupole deformations, but considerably influences triaxiality.

9 pages