Evolution and Destruction of Shapes in 59Cu

An extensive high-spin level scheme has been established in 59Cu using a heavy-ion fusion evaporation reaction and the GAMMASPHERE multidetector array in conjunction with MICROBALL. Next to the spherical states at low excitation energy a large number of regular sequences of high-energy γ-ray transitions have been observed, which form rotational bands with various degree of deformation. For the yrast superdeformed band about 90% of the intensity of the discrete γ decay-out, distributed over about 30 decay paths, is known, which allows for a detailed study of this decay-out process. Two of the deformed bands were found to decay by prompt proton emission into two different spherical states of 58Ni, in direct competition with the γ decay-out proces