High spin states of ll7Xe have been investigated by means of in-beam ,/-ray spectroscopy using the reaction 92Mo(28Si, 2pn) at beam energies of 100 to 120 MeV. The previously known Vhll/2 bands are confirmed and the vgT/2 favored-signature band is extended up to 47/2 + , in which two band crossings are observed at ~co=0.33 and 0.44 MeV, respectively. Two new positive-parity bands have been established, one of which is most likely the vgT/2 unfavored-signature band. A new transition cascade with irregular level spacings is also observed.PACS numbers: 21.10. Re, 23.20.Lv, 27.60.+j The neutron-deficient transitional nuclei with A~120, which are moderately deformed and ,/-soft, are of considerable interest in recent theoretical and experimental studies. A rich variety of nuclear structure effects, such as well developed collective rotational bands, shape coexistence, oblate collective band [1], and phenomena of shaping driving and band terminations at high spin [2,3], have been shown in this region. In light odd-A Xe isotopes, apart from the negative-parity Vhll/2 orbit, the positiveparity orbits vgT/2, vds/2 and vd3/2 lying near the Fermi surface, and a series of positive-parity bands have been established in these nuclei up to ll9Xe [4,5]. In previous work [6], only one vg7/2 positive-parity band consisting of five transitions was observed in llTXe.In the present work, the high spin states of ll7Xe were populated via the 92Mo(28Si, 2pn) reaction at the HI-13MV tandem accelerator, Beijing, using a 2 mg/cm 2 92Mo target (isotopically enriched to 94.1%) with a lead backing of 6 mg/cm 2. Excitation functions were measured in the energy region of 100 to 120 MeV and an optimal energy of 115 MeV was chosen for obtaining the u coincidence data. Seven BGO Compton surpressed HPGe detectors and a 14-element BGO crystal ball serving as a multiplicity falter were used to detect the `/-rays. About 90 million `/-`/ coincidence events were recorded on tapes and sorted off line into a symmetric 4k times 4k matrix from which gated background subtracted spectra were obtained. Average directional correlation (DCO) ratios were extracted from a DCO matrix in which coincidences from the Ge detectors at 90 ~ and 82 ~ were sorted against the detectors at _+35 ~ and +140 ~ . The proposed partial level scheme of llTXe from this work is shown in Fig. 1. Rotational bands labeled 3, 5 and 6, seen in the previous works [6,7], have been confirmed and extended. Three new bands 1, 2 and 4 have been assigned to ll7Xe mainly based on the 117Cs decay study ofref. [8].Band 5 and 6 represent the favored-and unfavoredsignature member of the Vhll/2 band, respectively. Band 6 is established two levels higher and show a sharp gain in the alignment. This indicates that its backbend frequency is around 0.41 MeV, somewhat smaller than that of 0.44 MeV observed in band 5. Our TRS calculation gives a shape of~ 2 = 0.229, 3, = -18 ~ for the c~ = -1/2 branch and of~ 2 = 0.231, `/= -10 ~ for c~ = 1/2, which leads to a large signature "splitting energy ...