Evolution of deformation in neutron-rich Ba isotopes up to A=150
12 pags., 11 figs., 3 tabs. -- Open Access funded by Creative Commons Atribution Licence 4.0 ; The occurrence of octupolar shapes in the Ba isotopic chain was recently established experimentally up to N = 90. To further extend the systematics, the evolution of shapes in the most neutron-rich members of the Z = 56 isotopic chain accessible at present, Ba-148,Ba-150, has been studied via beta decay at the ISOLDE Decay Station. This paper reports on the first measurement of the positive-and negative-parity low-spin excited states of 150Ba and presents an extension of the beta-decay scheme of Cs-148. Employing the fast timing technique, half-lives for the 2(1)(+) level in both nuclei have been determined, resulting in T-1/2 = 1.51(1) ns for Ba-148 and T-1/2 = 3.4(2) ns for Ba-150. The systematics of low-spin states, together with the experimental determination of the B(E2 : 2(+) -> 0(+)) transition probabilities, indicate an increasing collectivity in Ba148-150, towards prolate deformed shapes. The experimental data are compared to symmetry conserving configuration mixing (SCCM) calculations, confirming an evolution of increasingly quadrupole deformed shapes with a definite octupolar character. ; The IDS Collaboration acknowledges financial support from Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, the Italian "Programmi di Ricerca Scientifica di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale" (PRIN), contract 2001024324 01302; the European Union seventh framework through ENSAR, contract 262010; the European Unions Horizon 2020 Framework research and innovation program under grant agreement 654002 (ENSAR2); the FATIMA-NuPNET network via the PRI-PIMNUP-2011-1338 project; the Romanian IFA grant CERN/ISOLDE and Romanian PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-2003; the Spanish MINECO projects, reference numbers FPA2013- 41467-P, FPA2015-64969-P, FPA2015-65929, and FIS2015- 63770; Spanish grants FIS-2014-53434-P MINECO and Programa Ramon y Cajal 2012 No. 11420, MINECO grant IJCI-2014-19172, and the MINECO project FPA2014-52823- C2-1-P; the German BMBF under contract 05P15PKCIA, contract 05P15PKFNA, and "Verbundprojekt 05P2015," the FWO-Vlaanderen (Belgium); and the IAP Belgian Science Policy (BriX network P7/12). V.Ch. and Z.P. acknowledge support by the Polish grant of Narodowe Centrum Nauki, no. 2015/18/M/ST2/00523. ; Peer Reviewed