Polarization in the inelastic scattering of 185 MeV protons

The polarizations produced in the inelastic scattering of 185 MeV protons exciting the lowest octupole states in ¹²C and ²⁰⁸Pb are measured. The data together with earlier similar measurements for ⁴⁰Ca and ⁹⁰Zr are compared with existing theoretical models. The inclusion of a deformed spin-dependent interaction of the full Thomas form in the DWBA amplitude is found to considerably improve the theoretical fits to the data. For ¹²C, however, the DWBA fit is found to be inferior to that obtained using DWIA. The strong absorption model is found to give qualitatively good fits to the data for the heavier nuclei but again fails in the ¹²C case.