Possible double-octupole phonon band in $^{238}\mathrm{U}$

Rapid Communication

Possible double-octupole phonon band in ${}^{238}U$

S. Zhu, M. P. Carpenter, R. V. F. Janssens, S. Frauendorf, I. Ahmad, T. L. Khoo, F. G. Kondev, T. Lauritsen, C. J. Lister, and D. Seweryniak

Phys. Rev. C 81, 041306(R) – Published 28 April 2010

Abstract

The level scheme of ${}^{238}U$ has been extended using the so-called unsafe Coulomb excitation technique. One positive-parity band was uncovered for the first time, and its most important features can be related to a double-octupole phonon excitation. This band decays to the known $K = 0$ octupole band via $E 1$ transitions, with strengths much larger than those to the ground-state band. It also decays to the $K = 1$ and 2 octupole bands. Comparisons among the proposed zero-, one-, and two-phonon bands in ${}^{238}U$ and those in ${}^{240}{Pu}$ shed more light on the recently proposed concept of rotationally aligned octupole phonon condensation.