Casten R F, Cakirli R B, Blaum K, Couture A
Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8124, USA.
Department of Physics, University of Istanbul, 34134 Istanbul, Turkey.
Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Sep 12;113(11):112501. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.112501. Epub 2014 Sep 11.
Symmetries in nature offer very simple descriptions of complex systems. Partial Dynamical Symmetries (PDS) can considerably broaden their relevance. To present the first extensive test of a PDS for nuclei, we compare an SU(3) PDS to gamma to ground band B(E2) values for 47 deformed nuclei. The parameter-free PDS is found to be quite successful, but with characteristic discrepancies, suggesting that symmetry remnants are more pervasive than heretofore realized. Furthermore, the SU(3) PDS gives new insights into collective models (e.g., interacting boson approximation). If these reproduce the PDS, they reflect finite size effects, while differences from the PDS point to SU(3) configuration mixing.
