Coulomb and Inelastic Excitations of Target Nuclei in (³He,n) Two Proton Stripping Reactions on ²⁷Al, ⁵⁹Co, ¹⁴⁸Nd and ¹⁶⁰Gd

High resolution measurements have been made with the (³He,nγ) reaction on targets of ²⁷Al, ⁵⁹Co, ¹⁴⁸Nd and ¹⁶⁰Gd using the AFRODITE escape-suppressed γ-ray spectrometer in coincidence with a wall of large scintillator neutron detectors at zero degrees to the beamline. In spite of the geometry strongly favoring only L=0 transitions, strongly populated levels are observed that have the spin change between target and residual nuclei |ΔJ|>0. The data are discussed in terms of the incoming 3He Coulomb and/or inelastically exciting the target nucleus before the single step transfer of the two protons. Differing line shapes in previous low resolution time-of-flight (3He,n) measurements can be accounted for by this assumption. The inelastic excitation followed by the one-step transfer of two protons opens the opportunity of making (3He,n) measurements on low-lying excited states.