Compound and rotational damping in warm deformed rare-earth nuclei

The γ decay in the quasicontinuum from selected configurations of the rotational nucleus 163Er has been measured with the EUROBALL array. A new analysis technique has allowed for the first time to directly measure the compound and rotational damping widths Γμ and Γrot. Values of Γμ≈20  keV and Γrot≈200  keV are obtained in the spin region I≈30–40ℏ︀, in good agreement with microscopic cranked shell model calculations. A dependence of Γμ and Γrot on the K-quantum number of the nuclear states is also presented.