Quadrupole moments of wobbling excitations in Lu-163

Lifetimes of states in the triaxial strongly deformed bands of Lu-163 have been measured with the Gammasphere spectrometer using the Doppler-shift attenuation method. The bands have been interpreted as wobbling-phonon excitations from the characteristic electromagnetic properties of the transitions connecting the bands. Quadrupole moments are extracted for the zero-phonon yrast band and, for the first time, for the one-phonon wobbling band. The very similar results found for the two bands suggest a similar intrinsic structure and support the wobbling interpretation. While the in-band quadrupole moments for the bands show a decreasing trend towards higher spin, the ratio of the interband to the in-band transition strengths remains constant. Both features can be understood by a small increase in triaxiality towards higher spin. Such a change in triaxiality is also found in cranking calculations, to which the experimental results are compared.