New results from GASP in the A=130 mass region

The GASP array has been used to study the high spin structures of the 134Nd and 136Nd nuclei populated in the 110Pd(28Si,4n) and 110Pd(30Si,4n) reactions at 130 MeV and 125 MeV, respectively. Several deexcitation pathways have been established for the yrast and excited highly deformed (HD) bands in 134Nd. The decay out process in this nucleus has been understood in terms of mixing between the normal deformed and HD states, which is triggered by the crossing between the νi13/2 and νd5/2 orbitals. The study of the high spin excitations in 134Nd and 136Nd revealed two different mechanisms for generating high angular momentum: the step-wise occupation of the N=6 i13/2 intruders in the more rigid nucleus 134Nd and the alignment of successive pairs of h11/2 protons and neutrons coupled to a stable small-deformation triaxial core in the γ-soft nucleus 136Nd. (orig.). With 6 figs