Very high spin (50-60(Latin small letter h with stroke)) states in transitional 156Dy, 159Er and 160Er nuclei have been studied using the GAMMASPHERE and EUROGAM γ-ray spectrometers. The lowest energy positive-parity bands in 156Dy are found to evolve smoothly towards an oblate shape in contrast to the sudden change observed in the neighbouring 158Er nucleus. In 159Er, the decay path of the positive-parity yrast band splits above Iπ = 85/2+ and favoured multi-particle-hole states are identified in the irregular pattern at 89/2+ and 101/2+. The yrast structure of 160Er is found to remain collective up to and beyond 50(Latin small letter h with stroke) with no sign of an apparent termination.
}}, author = {{Kondev, F. G. and Riley, M. A. and Simpson, J. and Janssens, R. V.F. and Afanasjev, A. V. and Ragnarsson, I. and Brown, T. B. and Hartley, D. J. and Carpenter, M. P. and Fallon, P. and Fischer, S. M. and Khoo, T. L. and Lauritsen, T. and Ma, W. C. and Sharpey-Schafer, J. F. and Lisle, J. C. and Kalfas, C. A.}}, issn = {{0954-3899}}, language = {{eng}}, number = {{4}}, pages = {{897--899}}, publisher = {{IOP Publishing}}, series = {{Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics}}, title = {{Exploring the I = 50-60(Latin small letter h with stroke) domain : Collective and terminating structures in 156Dy, 159Er and 160Er}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0954-3899/25/4/064}}, doi = {{10.1088/0954-3899/25/4/064}}, volume = {{25}}, year = {{1999}}, }