6533b85ffe1ef96bd12c27fe

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Observation of octupole structures in radon and radium isotopes and their contrasting behavior at high spin

subject

description

Multinucleon transfer reactions have been used, for the first time, to populate high-spin bands of alternating parity states in {sup 218,220,222}Rn and {sup 222,224,226}Ra. The behavior of the angular momentum alignment with rotational frequency for the Rn isotopes is very different when compared with Ra and Th isotopes with N{approx}134, indicating a transition from octupole vibrational to stable octupole deformation. Throughout the measured spin range the values of {vert_bar}D{sub 0}/Q{sub 0}{vert_bar} remain constant for {sup 222}Ra and {sup 226}Ra and have a very small value for {sup 224}Ra, suggesting that the charge and mass distributions are not affected appreciably by rotations. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}