Speaker
Level for award<br> (Hons, MSc, <br> PhD)?
M.Sc
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
No
Main supervisor (name and email)<br>and his / her institution
Prof J.N Orce, jnorce@uwc.ac.za,
University of the Western Cape
Apply to be<br> considered for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
Yes
Abstract content <br> (Max 300 words)
Recent studies of double octupole states in 146Gd have resulted in the need of deep studies to be
done on two-phonon octupole excitation in 146Gd. Octupole vibrations come closer to the ideal
harmonic oscillator as a result of the larger number of particles participating in the motion and
the weaker mixing of negative-parity states at low excitation energies.
Octupole vibrations are, however, much more complex than the other modes of vibrations, such as dipole and quadrupole, and little is known about them. This vibrational mode is a result of a vibrating nucleus that
undergoes pear-shaped distortion, with “stem end” and the “blossom end” exchanging places periodically. In this project we study the octupole vibrations in the even-even nearly-spherical nucleus 146Gd82. A state with J=6+ at 3485 keV has already been suggested in 146Gd, and together with the finding, for the first time, of a 6+ → 3- → 0+ cascade of E3 γ-ray transitions, this has been interpret as the two-phonon octupole excitation.
So the aim of the project is to investigate this 6+ state and other missing members of the octupole quartet in order to accurately characterize two-phonon octupole vibrations in nearly-spherical nuclei.
