Test of octupole coupled $5^{\mathrm{-}}$ state in ${}_{}{}^{146}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Nd}$ using proton inelastic scattering

The inelastic scattering of 35 MeV protons has been used to excite seven states below 2.1 MeV in ${}_{}{}^{146}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Nd}$. A comparison between a coupled-channels calculation that assumes an octupole coupled structure for the $5^{\mathrm{-}}$ state at 1.517 MeV and the observed cross section suggests that the wave function of this state includes only a small two-quasiparticle component. In addition, the present results indicate that the level at 2.073 MeV, previously assigned ${\mathit{J}}^{\mathrm{\pi }}$=$4^{\mathrm{-}}$, actually has ${\mathit{J}}^{\mathrm{\pi }}$=$3^{\mathrm{-}}$.