Exploring high-k isomers in 176W

Previous experiments on the nucleus 176W had revealed K-isomers at medium spins which exhibit unique decay characteristics, and isomers at higher spins which were too weakly populated for detailed spectroscopy with the earlier generation of arrays. In order to study these weak higher-K isomers, the nucleus 176W was investigated further with the 55-detector Phase I of GAMMASPHERE, using the 150Nd(30Si,4n) reaction at a beam energy of 133 MeV. Both the energy and time parameter for each detector were recorded on an event-by-event basis, and a total of 0.55X109 triples events was collected. In addition to new information on the high-K isomers, the yrast band has been extended to spins close to 40, and a number of previously unobserved low-K band structures have been identified. The new results will be presented and discussed in the context of the K quantum number at high spins