High-Lying Proton Strengths Observed in Stripping Reactions

Strong transitions to high-lying proton states are observed for the first time in the study of the ($\alpha , t$) and (${}_{}{}^3{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{He}$, $d$) reactions on ${}_{}{}^{144}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Sm}$ at 80- and 240-MeV incident energy, respectively. The excitation energies, angular distributions, and strengths of these states suggest that they arise from proton stripping to high-spin outer subshells, e.g., $1h_{\frac{9}{2}}$ and $1i_{\frac{13}{2}}$.