Application of the triaxial quadrupole–octupole rotor to the ground and negative-parity levels of actinide nuclei

Abstract

In this work, we examine the possibility to describe yrast positive- and negative-parity excitations of deformed even–even nuclei through a collective rotation model in which the nuclear surface is characterized by triaxial quadrupole and octupole deformations. The nuclear moments of inertia are expressed as sums of quadrupole and octupole parts. By assuming an adiabatic separation of rotation and vibration degrees of freedom, we suppose that the structure of the positive- and negative-parity bands may be determined by the triaxial-rigid-rotor motion of the nucleus. By diagonalizing the Hamiltonian in a symmetrized rotor basis with embedded parity, we obtain a model description for the yrast positive- and negative-parity bands in several actinide nuclei. We show that the energy displacement between the opposite-parity sequences can be explained as the result of the quadrupole–octupole triaxiality.