The Study of Nuclear Collective Motion by Stripping Reactions*

The ‘intrinsic’ prohabilit,v for capt,ure of nurleons is studied for nurlei which exhibit collective vibrations or rotations in addition to an underlying shell structure of independent, nucleon orbits. Such probabilities or reduced widths for lowlying nuclear levels can be measured in ‘direct’ nuclear reactions; the present discussion is formulated chiefly in terms of deuteron stripping. Various selection rules are derived, and possible reasorls for their breakdown studied. It, is found that stripping is a particularly direct way of studying the wave functions of single particle orbits in st.rongly deformed nuclei. There are simple branching ratios between the capture probabilities int,o the various members of a rotational band in such nuclei. Finally, it is shown how such reduced width measurements can provide an independent check on the wave functions postulated by (Morn and Klema t)o correlate empirically the ground state propert,ies of nuclei.