Signature inversion - manifestation of drift of the rotational axis in triaxial nuclei

A possible scheme of realizing shell model calculations for heavy nuclei is based on a deformed basis and the projection technique. Here we present a new development for odd-odd nuclei, in which one starts with triaxially-deformed multi-quasi-particle configurations, builds the shell-model space through exact three-dimensional angular-momentum-projection, and diagonalizes a two-body Hamiltonian in this space. The model enables us to study the old problem of signature inversion from a different view. With an excellent reproduction of the experimental data in the mass-130 region, the results tend to interpret the phenomenon as a manifestation of dynamical drift of the rotational axis with presence of axial asymmetry in these nuclei. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.