Spin determination of valence and inner hole states via the 208Pb(rvec d,t)207Pb reaction at Ed=200 MeV

Highly excited neutron hole states in 207Pb have been studied via the (rvec d,t) reaction at Ed=200 MeV using for the first time a polarized beam, with both vector and tensor components. The determination of overlapping neutron hole response functions takes advantage of the strong characteristic features of j-=l-1/2 versus j+=l+1/2 level analyzing powers and of the good distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) description of the reaction. A least-squares fit analysis of the σ, Ay, and Ayy angular distributions has allowed a determination of the high j transition spectroscopic factors contributing to the excitation energy bins up to Ex=14.5 MeV. The results are compared in details with those relying only on l identification, previously obtained in the 1i13/2 and 1h9/2 valence state fragmentation up to Ex=6.7 MeV and on the 1h11/2 strength up to ∼10 MeV. Several previous conclusions are unambiguously confirmed, in particular, the attribution of the bump around Ex=8.2 MeV to the 1h11/2 strength. In addition, the present experiment settles the attributions of several j- versus j+ valence groups and indicates that the 1h9/2 strength is spread up to ∼10.8 MeV