Bvumbi, S.P.Sharpey-Schafer, J.F.Jones, P.M.Mullins, S.M.2018-02-272018-02-272013Bvumbi, S.P. et al. (2013). Octupole correlations in the structure of O2 bands in the N=88 nuclei150Sm Gd. Physical Review C, 87: 0443330556-2813http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.87.044333http://hdl.handle.net/10566/3538Knowledge of the exact microscopic structure of the 01 + ground state and first excited 02 + state in 150Sm is required to understand the branching of double β decay to these states from 150Nd. The detailed spectroscopy of 150Sm and 152Gd has been studied using (α,xn) reactions and the γ -ray arrays AFRODITE and JUROGAM II. Consistently strong E1 transitions are observed between the excited Kπ = 02 + bands and the lowest negative parity bands in both nuclei. These results are discussed in terms of the possible permanent octupole deformation in the first excited Kπ = 02 + band and also in terms of the “tidal wave” model of Frauendorf.enPhysical Review C allows for the publisher's version to be uploaded to the authors' institutional repository.OctupoleMicroscopic structurePermanent octupole deformationOctupole correlations in the structure of O2 bands in the N=88 nuclei150Sm GdArticle