OCTUPOLE CORRELATIONS AT LOW-SPIN IN TE-108(52)56

Excited states in Te-108 have been identified up to spins of similar t o 20h using the extremely weak 2p2n evaporation channel (similar to 0. 2% of sigma(fus)) from the bombardment of a backed Fe-54 target with 2 43 MeV Ni-58 ions. Channel selection and enhancement was made possible using the power of the GAMMASPHERE array to measure high-fold gamma-r ay coincidences and the resultant application of multiple gamma-ray ga ting techniques. The observation in Te-108 of two interleaved sequence s of levels with assumed opposite parity connected by enhanced El tran sitions is interpreted in terms of octupole correlations. The current results for Te-108 make it the closest nucleus to the predicted region of octupole deformation centered at N=Z=56 yet studied to high spin.