Empirical investigation of extreme single-particle behavior of nuclear quadrupole moments in highly collective A approximately 150 superdeformed bands

Phys Rev Lett. 2001 Oct 22;87(17):172503. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.172503. Epub 2001 Oct 9.

Abstract

The intrinsic quadrupole moment Q(0) of superdeformed rotational bands in A approximately 150 nuclei depends on the associated single-particle configuration. We have derived an empirical formula based on the additivity of effective quadrupole moments of single-particle orbitals that describes existing measurements from (142)Sm to (152)Dy. To further test the formula, the predicted Q(0) moments for two superdeformed bands in (146)Gd of 14.05 eb were confronted with a new measurement yielding 13.9+/-0.4 eb and 13.9+/-0.3 eb, respectively. This excellent agreement provides empirical evidence of extreme single-particle behavior in highly deformed, collective systems.