Eur. Phys. J. A (2017) 53: 90
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2017-12272-y

Review

Structure and symmetries of odd-odd triaxial nuclei

¹ Department of Nuclear and Atomic Physics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, 400 005, Colaba, Mumbai, India
² Department of Physics, University of Kashmir, 190 006, Srinagar, India
³ Department of Physics, Govt. Degree College Kulgam, 192 231, Kulgam, India
⁴ Cluster University of Srinagar, 190001, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India

^* e-mail: palit@tifr.res.in

Received: 14 December 2016
Accepted: 5 April 2017
Published online: 11 May 2017

Abstract

Rotational spectra of odd-odd Rh and Ag isotopes are investigated with the primary motivation to search for the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking phenomenon in these nuclei. The experimental results obtained on the degenerate dipole bands of some of these isotopes using a large array of gamma detectors are discussed and studied using the triaxial projected shell (TPSM) approach. It is shown that, first of all, to reproduce the odd-even staggering of the known yrast bands of these nuclei, large triaxial deformation is needed. This large triaxial deformation also gives rise to doublet band structures in many of these studied nuclei. The observed doublet bands in these isotopes are shown to be reproduced reasonably well by the TPSM calculations. Further, the TPSM calculations for neutron-rich nuclei indicate that the ideal manifestation of the chirality can be realised in ¹⁰⁶Rh and ¹¹²Ag , where the doublet bands have similar electromagnetic properties along with small differences in excitation energies.