(n, gamma) reactions in heavy nuclei: Manifestations of nuclear structure at excitation energies up to the neutron binding energy

At present, information about the excitation of 40 nuclei from the mass reg ion 114 less than or equal to A less than or equal to 200 and about their s ubsequent decays into given lowly lying levels of those nuclei has been obt ained for excitation energies in the region extending up to the neutron bin ding energy. A comparison of the experimentally observed intensities of suc h two-photon cascades with the results of calculations based on the statist ical theory of gamma decay reveals that, in order to predict the parameters of such processes to a precision comparable to that achievable in modern e xperiments, it is necessary to take into account the effect of the structur e of excited nuclear states up to neutron binding energy.