  Well-known examples of shears bands in the nuclei 198Pb and 199Pb are
investigated within tilted axis cranking relativistic mean-field theory. Energy
spectra, the relation between spin and rotational frequency, deformation
parameters and reduced $M1$ and $E2$ transition probabilities are calculated.
The results are in good agreement with available data and with calculations
based on the phenomenological pairing plus-quadrupole-quadrupole tilted-axis
cranking model. It is shown that covariant density functional theory provides a
successful microscopic and fully self-consistent description of magnetic
rotation in the Pb region showing the characteristic properties as the shears
mechanism and relatively large B(M1) transitions decreasing with increasing
spin.
