Superfluid tunneling in the restoration of parity conservation in octupole deformed nuclei

Abstract

There is strong evidence that the nucleus ${}_{}{}^{222}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Ra}$ displays both quadrupole and octupole permanent deformations. The observed energy splitting between the associated even- and odd-parity rotational bands can be described in terms of superfluid tunneling in the space of nuclear shapes.