New results on octupole collectivity

Abstract

Octupole correlations play an important role in determining the level structure of nuclei throughout the periodic chart. Microscopically, octupole correlations are the result of the long-range, octupole-octupole interaction between nucleons occupying pairs of orbitals which differ in both orbital and total angular momentum by 3 units. A review of some of the most recent findings on octupole correlations is given. Emphasis is placed on new results from the actinide region, where two distinct collective modes have long been identified: octupole vibration and octupole deformation. These new results include negative-parity structures which appear to evolve from an octupole vibration into a static octupole deformed mode. In addition, newly observed rotational structures built on an excited 0+ state have been tentatively associated with a double-octupole phonon excitation. These newly observed properties can be successively described by calculations based on the concept of rotational-aligned octupole phonon condensation.