High spin levels populated in multinucleon transfer reaction with 480 MeV 12C

Two- and three-nucleon stripping reactions induced by 480 MeV 12C have been studied on 12C, 16O, 28Si, 40Ca and 54Fe target nuclei. Discrete levels are fed with cross sections up to 1 mb/sr for d-transfer reactions and one order and two orders of magnitude less for 2p- and 3He-transfer reactions, respectively. These reactions preferentially populate high spin states with stretched configurations. Several spin assignments were known from transfer reactions induced by lighter projectiles at incident energies well above the Coulomb barrier. In the case of two-nucleon transfer reactions, the energy of these states is well reproduced by crude shell model calculations. Such estimates are of use in proposing spins of newly observed states especially as the shapes of the measured angular distributions are independent of the final spin of the residual nucleus