  Several topics concerning nuclear structure and electromagnetic interactions
of heavy nuclei are reviewed. These comprehend the deformed single-particle
shell model, nuclear collective motion, symmetry breaking and approximate
symmetry restoring in atomic nuclei, particularly the proxy-SU(3) scheme. The
relations between these theoretical frameworks are stated and it is shown how
they contribute to a better and broader understanding of atomic nuclei. The
semi-microscopic algebraic quartet model of atomic nuclei in the proxy-SU(3)
scheme is applied to obtain previously unknown irreducible representations,
deformation parameters, nuclear excited states and electromagnetic transition
probabilities for certain heavy isotopes. The experimental data available for
such nuclear region is currently very poor, so in preparation for future
experimental efforts the theoretical background is developed along with some
perspectives to work on are proposed.
