Dudek J, Curien D, Dubray N, Dobaczewski J, Pangon V, Olbratowski P, Schunck N. Island of rare Earth nuclei with tetrahedral and octahedral symmetries: possible experimental evidence.
Phys Rev Lett 2006;
97:072501. [PMID:
17026223 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.97.072501]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2006] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
Calculations using realistic mean-field methods suggest the existence of nuclear shapes with tetrahedral Td and/or octahedral Oh symmetries sometimes at only a few hundreds of keV above the ground states in some rare earth nuclei around 156Gd and 160Yb. The underlying single-particle spectra manifest exotic fourfold rather than Kramers's twofold degeneracies. The associated shell gaps are very strong, leading to a new form of shape coexistence in many rare earth nuclei. We present possible experimental evidence of the new symmetries based on the published experimental results--although an unambiguous confirmation will require dedicated experiments.
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