  We calculate the elementary excitations and pairing of a trapped atomic Fermi
gas in the superfluid phase. The level spectra and pairing gaps undergo several
transitions as the strength of the interactions between and the number of atoms
are varied. For weak interactions, the Cooper pairs are formed between
particles residing in the same harmonic oscillator shell. In this regime, the
nature of the paired state is shown to depend critically on the position of the
chemical potential relative to the harmonic oscillator shells and on the size
of the mean field. For stronger interactions, we find a region where pairing
occur between time-reversed harmonic oscillator states in different shells
also.
