E2 CONTRIBUTION TO THE DECAY OUT OF A SUPERDEFORMED BAND

The contribution of E2 transitions to the decay out of superdeformed states is evaluated on the basis of the Nilsson + particle-number conserving BCS model with angular momentum projection. It is shown that the transition matrix elements have a strong dependence on the deformation of final states, while being almost independent of the angular momentum. By considering the intermediate deformed states as final states, the E2 contribution can become sufficiently large to explain the sudden termination of the superdeformed band in the Hg region.