Recent studies on nuclear phenomena at the extremes using γ -ray spectroscopy

The γ -decay of the excited nucleus provides experimental information on the nuclear structure properties at extreme conditions of temperature, angular momentum and isospin. First, the order-to-chaos transition is studied in the warm rotating 163Er nucleus, in terms of vanishing of selection rules on the K quantum number. Second, the properties of the excited superdeformed bands in 151Tb and 196Pb nuclei are investigated in connection with their decay-out into the low deformation states. Finally, the population of highly excited low-spin states in moderately neutron-rich systems is discussed in connection with deep-inelastic reactions.