Population and decay of superdeformed nuclei probed by discrete and quasi-continuum γ-ray spectroscopy

Nuclear superdeformation at high spin was discovered a little over 30 years ago. Since then, a large body of data has been collected on the subject and many new and interesting phenomena have been discovered. In particular, the way superdeformed states are populated and depopulated offers a unique laboratory to study rotational motion as a function of excitation energy and the evolution of nuclear structure over a large interval in energy and spin. This article focuses on the experimental techniques and methods developed to study the quasicontinuous spectra of gamma rays emitted by rapidly rotating superdeformed nuclei and presents the results regarding rotational damping, the transition from ordered to chaotic motion and quantum tunnelling in a complex environment.