Angular distributions of inelastically scattered deuterons from Ni leading to many individually resolved states of the final nucleus were measured. The collective $2^{+}$ levels have identical angular distributions, but these are considerably different from those leading to other $2^{+}$, $0^{+}$, and $4^{+}$ levels. Many (but not all) of the latter are strongly similar to each other. The $3^{-}$ states in ${\mathrm{Ni}}^{60}$ and ${\mathrm{Ni}}^{62}$ have similar angular distributions, but the $3^{-}$ state in ${\mathrm{Ni}}^{58}$ is appreciably different. The predictions of the Blair phase rule on relative phases of elastic scattering angular distributions and those leading to states of positive and negative parity are not valid in Ni, but they apply fairly well to the collective states in Zr and Sn. While the other states in these nuclei have somewhat different angular distributions, the phase rule works well enough to make tentative parity assignments for a large number of levels. The method breaks down badly only for the two phonon levels; all attempts at systematizing data from the latter fail. A survey of energy spectra from 27 elemental and isotopic targets is reported. Corrections to a previous survey are listed.

• Received 12 July 1962

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.128.2292