Eur. Phys. J. A (2020) 56: 208
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-020-00218-5

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Multiple chiral bands in Nd

¹ Centre de Sciences Nucléaires et Sciences de la Matière, CNRS/IN2P3, Université Paris-Saclay, Bât. 104-108, 91405, Orsay, France
² Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China
³ Physik-Department, Technische Universität München, 85747, Garching, Germany
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
⁵ Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Jyväskylä, 40014, Jyvaskyla, Finland
⁷ The Oliver Lodge Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZE, UK
⁸ Department of Mathematical Physics, Lund Institute of Technology, 22362, Lund, Sweden
⁹ CERN, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
¹⁰ STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, WA4 4AD, UK
¹¹ Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, University of Oulu, 99600, Sodankylä, Finland
¹² Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, 60439, USA
¹³ KTH Department of Physics, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden
¹⁴ Institute for Nuclear Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pf. 51, 4001, Debrecen, Hungary
¹⁵ Heavy Ion Laboratory, University of Warsaw, Pasteura 5a, 02-093, Warsaw, Poland
¹⁶ Department of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada

^* e-mail: costel.petrache@csnsm.in2p3.fr
^** e-mail: lvbingfeng@impcas.ac.cn

Received: 8 June 2020
Accepted: 4 August 2020
Published online: 18 August 2020

Abstract

Two new bands have been identified in Nd from a high-statistics JUROGAM II gamma-ray spectroscopy experiment. Constrained density functional theory and particle rotor model calculations are used to assign configurations and investigate the band properties, which are well described and understood. It is demonstrated that these two new bands can be interpreted as chiral partners of previously known three-quasiparticle positive- and negative-parity bands. The newly observed chiral doublet bands in Nd represent an important support to the existence of multiple chiral bands in nuclei. The present results constitute the missing stone in the series of Nd nuclei showing multiple chiral bands, which becomes the most extended sequence of odd–even and even-even nuclei presenting multiple chiral bands in the Segré chart.