Levels in 167, 169Ho populated in the (t, α) reaction

The 168, 170Er(t, α)167, 169Ho reactions have been studied using 17 MeV tritons with a polarization of 0.78 from the Los Alamos tandem Van de Graaff accelerator facility. The reaction products were momentum analyzed with a Q3D magnetic spectrometer and detected with a helical-cathode position-sensitive proportional counter. The angular distributions for strongly populated levels in general allowed unique determination of spin and parity. As the previous knowledge of the structure of 167Ho and 169Ho was not extensive, the present data have contributed significantly to the understanding of these nuclei. The 167Ho results confirm the assignments from decay scheme studies and extend the interpretation to higher energies. In 169Ho the results from the present experiment confirm some assignments from a recent (d, 3He) study and show that others were incorrect. Spectroscopic factors for the strongest transitions are in reasonable agreement with expectations from the Nilsson model with pairing and Coriolis couplings included.