Possible experimental signature of octupole correlations in the 0${}_2^{+}$ states of the actinides

Abstract

$J^{\pi }$= 0${}^{+}$ states have been investigated in the actinide nucleus ${}^{240}$Pu up to an excitation energy of 3 MeV with a high-resolution (p,t) experiment at $E_p$= 24 MeV. To test the recently proposed $J^{\pi }$= 0${}_2^{+}$ double-octupole structure, the phenomenological approach of the spdf-interacting boson model has been chosen. In addition, the total 0${}^{+}$ strength distribution and the $0^{+}$ strength fragmentation have been compared to the model predictions as well as to the previously studied (p,t) reactions in the actinides. The results suggest that the structure of the 0${}_2^{+}$ states in the actinides might be more complex than the usually discussed pairing isomers. Instead, the octupole degree of freedom might contribute significantly. The signature of two close-lying 0${}^{+}$ states below the 2-quasiparticle energy is presented as a possible manifestation of strong octupole correlations in the structure of the 0${}_2^{+}$ states in the actinides.

6 pages, 5 figures, published in Phys. Rev. C 88, 041303(R) (2013)

References in corpus (5)

• Discovery of the shape coexisting 0+ state in 32Mg by a two neutron transfer reaction
• Heart - Shaped Nuclei: Condensation of Rotational Aligned Octupole Phonons
• Structure of ${}^{240}$Pu: Evidence for Octupole Phonon Condensation?
• Alternative Interpretation of Sharply Rising E0 Strengths in Transitional Regions
• Spectroscopy of 230Th in the (p,t) reaction

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Octupole deformation in the ground states of even-even nuclei: a global analysis within the covariant density functional theory
• Spectroscopy of reflection-asymmetric nuclei with relativistic energy density functionals
• High-resolution $(p,t)$ study of low-spin states in ${}^{240}$Pu: Octupole excitations, $\alpha$ clustering, and other structure features
• High-resolution study of excited states in 158Gd with (p,t) reactions
• The alternating-parity bands of \element{236,238}{U} and \element{238,240}{Pu} in a particle-number conserving method based on cranked shell model
• Analytical description of the excited state phase transition to octupole deformed shape in alternating parity bands
• A simple approach to the chaos-order contributions in nuclear spectra
• New data on $0^{+}$ states in ${}^{158}$Gd
• Statistical analysis of excitation energies in the actinide and rare-earth nuclei
• Mapped $spdf$ interacting boson model for quadrupole-octupole collective states in nuclei
• Octupole correlation effects on two-neutron transfer intensity in rare-earth nuclei
• The ICESPICE demonstrator for particle/$\gamma$-$e^{-}$ coincidence experiments at Florida State University
• Impacts of hexadecapole correlations in actinide nuclei
• Two-neutron transfer reactions and quantum-chaos measure of nuclear spectra