suspect that a satisfactory explanation of the highly retarded decay to the first two 2+ levels will need to take into consideration the detailed shell-model configurations of both the parent and daughter states.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe are indebted to E. B. Shera and R. K. Sheline for helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript. Illuminating comments were also received from G. Scharff-Goldhaber and J. B. Ball. Finally, we wish to thank the LASL cyclotron staff for providing the proton-bombardment facilities.deformed nuclei (^4>154). The level schemes of the two adjacent even-Z, even-iV nuclei, 152 Sm and 154 Sm, exhibit distorted but easily recognized ground-state rotational bands which suggest moderately strong deformations for these nuclei. The 153 Sm nucleus is in fact the lightest even-Z, odd-N samarium isotope that can, with reasonable certainty, be expected to exhibit a level scheme consistent with the Nilsson model for an PHYSICAL REVIEW BENT CRYSTAL 1633 r r y BEAM POST COLLIMATOR No I DETECTOR -7.7 m Y ENERGY CONSTANT 9 S. G. Nilsson, Kgl. Danske Videnskab. Selskab, Mat.-Fys.