Identification of New 0+ States in 148Nd and Evidence for a Double-Octupole Phonon Band

To investigate the structure of low-lying 0+ states in regions of enhanced octupole collectivity, we measured the 150Nd(p,t)148Nd reaction at the John D. Fox Accelerator Laboratory using the Super-Enge Split-Pole Spectrograph (SE-SPS). 148Nd has neutron number N = 88, one of the octupole "magic numbers," and proton number Z = 60, which lies near another octupole magic number (Z = 56). This makes it an ideal candidate for studying octupole correlations and benchmarking the sensitivity of two-neutron transfer reactions with proton energies of 16 MeV to 0+ excitations via L = 0 transfer. This work presents preliminary results, including several new 0+ states and a candidate for the bandhead of the double-octupole phonon band.