Charged particle feeding of hyperdeformed nuclei in the A=118-126 region

International audience; A breakthrough was recently obtained in the analysis of the so-called Hyper-Long-HyperDeformed (HLHD) experiment made at the EUROBALL-IV γ-detector array (EB). The 64Ni + 64Ni ⇒ 128Ba* fusion reaction was studied at Ebeam = 255 and 261 MeV, reaching the highest angular momentum that the compound nuclei can accommodate. To date no discrete HD rotational bands have been identified. However, rotational patterns in the form of ridge-structures in three-dimensional (3D) rotational mapped spectra are identified with dynamic moments of inertia J(2) ranging from 71 to 1112 MeV-1 in 12 different nuclei selected by charged particle- and/or γ-gating. The four nuclei, 118Te, 124Cs, 125Cs and 124Xe found with moment of inertia J(2)≥100 2 MeV-1, are most likely hyperdeformed, the remaining nuclei with smaller values of J(2), are considered to be superdeformed, in qualitative agreement with recent theoretical calculations.