Differential-cross-section and vector-analyzing-power angular distributions of the reaction 48 Ca(tf P oi, a) 46 K at E d = 19A MeV unambiguously reveal J n = l + transitions to states at 4.54 and 5.95 MeV in 46 K, the latter of which is quite strong. Such transitions result from the pickup of a stretched (lfj/ 2 )j = i,T = o configuration proton-neutron pair. A comparison of strength to the 7 + transition in 50 Ti(d, a) 48 Sc (1.10 MeV) implies a relatively large I/7/2 proton occupation number of 0.65 ± 0.20 for the 48 Ca ground state. PACS numbers: 25.45.Jj, 21.10.Pc, 27.40. + z The extent to which proton core excitations exist in the ground state of the doubly magic nucleus 48 Ca has come under recent scrutiny in connection with the experimentally observed suppression of Ml transition strength in inelastic electron 1 and proton 2 scattering, and the "missing" Gamow-Teller (GT) strength in the (p,n) reaction. 3 Explanations of this quenching have been sought in terms of conventional nuclearstructure calculations, 4 considering only neutron core excitations and complete proton shell closure, as well as in more exotic mechanisms such as nonnucleonic (A-hole) degrees of freedom. 5 "" 7 Experimental substantiation for either line of thought is scarce. It has been generally believed, on the basis of (d, 3 Ho) results, that 48 Ca possesses the best (proton) shell closure of all calcium isotopes 8 ; in a new study of the reaction 9 48 Ca(^, 3 He) 47 K only a very small amount of / 7 / 2 pickup strength was found. These results disagree considerably, however, with the strength found for proton stripping on 48 Ca into sd-shell holes 10 ; these authors found an sd vacancy strength comparable to that for 40 Ca and about 5 times larger than the fy 2 occupancy in the new pickup experiment. 9 A recent conventional calculation 11 within the framework of a twostate shell model for both the 0 + ground and the 1 + excited states in 48 Ca, which included the small proton core excitation found in Ref. 9, could not account for the missing Ml strength. A larger I/7/2 proton occupancy could possibly account, through interference of amplitudes, for the retarded Ml strength.In this Letter we report results from the reaction 48 Ca(d, a) 46 K whose interpretation indicates a substantial proton occupancy of the I/7/2 orbital in the ground-state wave function of 48 Ca, consistent with the results from proton stripping into s^f-shell holes. 10 Recent experimental investigations of the (d,a) reaction on l/-shell target nuclei with 80-MeV vectorpolarized deuterons 12 have shown an extremely strong selectivity for exciting residual nuclear states formed by picking up proton-neutron pairs in the completely aligned (1/7/2)/ = 7, 7^ = 0 configuration. This selectivity arises in part from the large angular-momentum mismatch between the entrance and exit channels. Such C/7/2)7,0 transitions are characterized by pure L = 6 angular distributions of the differential cross section and distinct 7 = 7 patterns of the vector analyzing powers (VAP). 12 ...