Eur. Phys. J. A (2024) 60: 83
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-024-01295-6

Regular Article – Experimental Physics

Lifetimes of 0${}^{+}$ states in ${}^{162}$Dy

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Notre Dame, 46556, Notre Dame, IN, USA
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 54601, La Crosse, WI, USA
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, 40506, Lexington, KY, USA
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Mississippi State University, 39762, Starkville, MS, USA
⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of Kentucky, 40506, Lexington, KY, USA

^a aapraham@nd.edu

Received: 5 January 2024
Accepted: 5 March 2024
Published online: 9 April 2024

Abstract

Transfer reactions at the high-precision Q3D spectrometer at the University of Munich have shown that there are many low-lying excited K${}^{\pi }=0^{+}$ states in well-deformed nuclei. A recent study of ${}^{162}$Dy shows eleven 0${}^{+}$ states below an energy of 3 MeV. While this nucleus is studied extensively, the lifetimes of the new states were not known. We report on lifetime measurements of the newly observed states in order to determine their properties and allow the characterization of these states. Level lifetimes of 0${}^{+}$ states in ${}^{162}$Dy were measured by the ($n,n^{\prime }\gamma$) reaction and the Doppler-shift attenuation method at the University of Kentucky. This work allow us to report the transition probabilities from six of the eleven 0${}^{+}$ states. We suggest that the first excited K${}^{\pi }$ =  0${}^{+}$ excitation at 1400.2 keV in ${}^{162}$Dy may be the $\beta$ vibrational excitation and not the $\gamma \gamma$ excitation indicated in the past or a shape coexistence minimum.