Transition-Energy Correlations in the<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>γ</mml:mi></mml:math>-Ray Continuum—A New Approach

Abstract

A new method, which has been developed to isolate energy-correlated cascades from a background of uncorrelated events in the $\ensuremath{\gamma}$-ray continuum, has been applied to the $^{16}\mathrm{O}$ +$^{64}\mathrm{Ni}$ reaction at $E(^{16}\mathrm{O})=80$ MeV. In $^{74}\mathrm{Se}$, the dominant reaction product, it gives $\frac{2\mathcal{I}}{{\ensuremath{\hbar}}^{2}}\ensuremath{\simeq}53\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}5 \mathrm{and} 65\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}6$ ${\mathrm{MeV}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$, respectively, for the rotationallike cascades below and above a phase transition observed at $I\ensuremath{\approx}22$ units. These data also indicate that only a small portion of the decay proceeds through rotationallike cascades.