Direct Evidence for Octupole Deformation in 146^{146}Ba and the Origin of Large E1E1 Moment Variations in Reflection-Asymmetric Nuclei

Despite the more than one order of magnitude difference between the measured dipole moments in $^{144}$Ba and $^{146}$Ba, the strength of the octupole correlations in $^{146}$Ba are found to be as strong as those in $^{144}$Ba with a similarly large value of $B(E3;3^- \rightarrow 0^+)$ determined as 48($^{+21}_{-29}$) W.u. The new results not only establish unambiguously the presence of a region of octupole deformation centered on these neutron-rich Ba isotopes, but also manifest the dependence of the electric dipole moments on the occupancy of different neutron orbitals in nuclei with enhanced octupole strength, as revealed by fully microscopic calculations.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Search for Weak Side Branches in the Electromagnetic Decay Paths of the 6526-keV 10+ Isomer in 54Fe

High-spin nuclear isomers in (Formula presented.) nuclei between doubly magic (Formula presented.) Ca and (Formula presented.) Ni provide an excellent testing ground for the nuclear shell model and questions related to isospin symmetry breaking in the vicinity of the proton drip line. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the possibility of weak electromagnetic decay branches along the decay paths of the 6526-keV (Formula presented.) isomer in (Formula presented.) Fe. The isomer was strongly populated by means of the fusion-evaporation reaction (Formula presented.) Mg((Formula presented.) Ar, (Formula presented.)) (Formula presented.) Fe. The Gammasphere array was used to detect (Formula presented.) -ray cascades emitted from the isomeric state. By means of (Formula presented.) coincidences, weak non-yrast decay branches can be discriminated, with the isomer’s half-life confirmed at (Formula presented.) ns. The yrast (Formula presented.)   (Formula presented.) cross-over transition was interrogated. The observations are compared with shell-model calculations