Return of collective rotation in 157Er and 158Er at ultrahigh spin.

A new frontier of discrete-line gamma-ray spectroscopy at ultrahigh spin has been opened in the rare-earth nuclei (157,158) Er. Four rotational structures, displaying high moments of inertia, have been identified, which extend up to spin approximately 65 variant Planck's over 2pi and bypass the band-terminating states in these nuclei which occur at approximately 45 variant Planck's over 2pi. Cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky calculations suggest that these structures arise from well-deformed triaxial configurations that lie in a valley of favored shell energy which also includes the triaxial strongly deformed bands in (161-167) Lu.