Investigation of theBa128nucleus with the(p,t)reaction

The low lying states in {sup 128}Ba have been investigated for the first time with the {sup 130}Ba(p,t){sup 128}Ba reaction. The experiment was performed at the Munich Q3D magnetic spectrograph with a 25-MeV proton beam and a high-resolution, 1.5-m-long focal plane detector. As a result of this experiment 27 excited levels with energies below 3.7 MeV have been observed for the first time, significantly increasing (by {approx}50%) the number of levels observed in {sup 128}Ba. Angular distributions of tritons were measured and their comparison with the distorted wave Born approximation calculation allowed in most cases spin and parity assignments for the nuclear levels. The experimental two-neutron transition strengths with transferred angular momentum L=0 and 2 are compared with the predictions of the IBA-1 model with a new set of parameters. The results indicate for the first time from a hadronic probe perspective a transitional structure close to the O(6) symmetry for the {sup 128}Ba nucleus, confirming previous conclusions of {gamma}-ray spectroscopy studies.