Superdeformed and highly deformed bands in 65 Zn and neutron-proton interactions in Zn isotopes C.-H. Yu, 1 C. Baktash, 1 J. Dobaczewski, 2 J. A. Cameron, 3 M. Devlin, 4, * J. Eberth, 5 A. Galindo-Uribarri, 1 D. S. Haslip, 3,† D. R. LaFosse, 4,‡ T. J. Lampman, 3 I.-Y. Lee, 6 F. Lerma, 4 A. O. Macchiavelli, 6 S. D. Paul, 1,7 D. C. Radford, 1 D. Rudolph, 8 D. G. Sarantites, 4 C. E. Svensson, 3,6 J. C. Waddington, 3 and J. N. Wilson 5,§ 1 Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831 2 Institute of Theoretical Physics, Warsaw University, Hoza 69, PL-00681 Warsaw, Poland 3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1 4 Chemistry Department, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130 5 Institut fu ¨r Kernphysik, Universita ¨t zu Ko ¨ln, D-50937 Ko ¨ln, Germany 6 Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 7 Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831 8 Department of Physics, Lund University, S-22100 Lund, Sweden Received 31 May 2000; published 11 September 2000 Superdeformed and highly deformed rotational bands were established in 65 Zn using the 40 Ca( 29 Si,4 p ) 65 Zn reaction, and averaged quadrupole moments were measured for two of these bands. The configurations of these bands were assigned based on Hartree-Fock calculations. One of the three bands exhibits at low a rise in the J (2) dynamic moments of inertia that is similar to the alignment gain observed in 60 Zn. A comparison of the rotational band configurations and their J (2) moments of inertia for light Zn isotopes suggests that the rise in J (2) is most likely caused by np interactions associated with the valence protons and neutrons occupying the g 9/2 intruder orbits. PACS numbers: 21.10.Re, 21.10.Hw, 23.20.Lv, 27.50.+e Recent studies 1–6of superdeformed SDand highly deformed bands in 60-64,68 Zn have allowed systematic analyses of strongly deformed shapes and configurations in nuclei with N Z . In the previous study 1of 60 Zn, a rise in the J (2) moments of inertia of the SD band was interpreted as the simultaneous alignment of the g 9/2 protons and neutrons. However, the absence of such an alignment in the SD band of 61 Zn raises questions 2of whether or not the T =0 pair- ing is responsible for such an alignment. To understand the true cause of the rise in J (2) , and to gain insight into the questions of the possible T =0 pairing, more experimental data are needed for the neighboring nuclei. In this paper, we report a study of SD and highly deformed bands in 65 Zn, and present possible evidence for neutron-proton correlations in highly-deformed Zn isotopes. High spin states in 65 Zn were populated using the 40 Ca( 29 Si,4p ) reaction at a beam energy of 130 MeV. The 29 Si beam was provided by the 88-Inch Cyclotron at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the target con- sisted of a layer of 0.5 mg/cm 2 enriched 40 Ca evaporated onto a layer of 2.5 mg/cm 2 Ta foil as backing. The rays from the reaction were detected by the Gammasphere 7 array, which had 100 detectors at the time of the experiment. The evaporated charged particles were detected by the 95- element CsI detector array Microball 8, and the information obtained was used to select the reaction channel, as well as to determine the velocity of the recoil for event-by-event Dop- pler corrections. A total of about 88 million 4-proton gated  or higher fold events were collected from the experi- ment. Three rotational bands were established from the reaction-channel-selected  cube, and are shown in Fig. 1. Although no connecting transitions were observed be- tween these bands and the low-spin normally deformed ND states 9in 65 Zn, they are assigned to 65 Zn with confidence due to their unambiguous coincidence relationships with the known 9transitions in 65 Zn see Fig. 2. Among the three established bands, band 1 is the most strongly populated and is measured to have the largest defor- mation see ensuing discussions on measurement of Q t ’s. The average intensity of this band is approximately 2.5% of that of the 202-keV ND transition at low spin see Fig. 3.A spectrum obtained by summing all possible double gates in this band is strongly in coincidence with the 202-, 864-, 987-, and 1173-keV ND transitions in 65 Zn, as seen in Fig. 2a. For this spectrum, the  cube has Doppler correc- tions performed at two different recoil velocities: For E 1350 keV, v rec / c =0.04, which corresponds to fast decays of SD bands; for E 1350 keV, v rec / c =0.027, which cor- responds to decays of low spin states occurring when the recoil has been slowed down by the backing and is traveling in vacuum. As a result of this dual-velocity Doppler correc- tion, Fig. 2ashows narrow peaks for both the SD band as well as the low spin ND transitions. The spectrum obtained by summing all possible combinations of double gates on *Present address: LANSCE-3, MS H855, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545. Present address: Defence Research Establishment Ottawa, Ot- tawa, Ontario, Canada. Present address: Department of Physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794. § Present address: Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen O , Denmark. RAPID COMMUNICATIONS PHYSICAL REVIEW C, VOLUME 62, 041301R 0556-2813/2000/624/0413015/$15.00 ©2000 The American Physical Society 62 041301-1