Clustering aspects of nuclei in highly deformed states

The potential energies, the moments of inertia, and the quadrupole and octupole moments of dinuclear systems are compared with corresponding values for the highly deformed nuclear states. The idea is advocated that hyperdeformed states of nuclei are close to near-symmetric dinuclear systems. The superdeformed states are considered as asymmetric dinuclear systems. The cluster superdeformed and hyperdeformed states have quite a large octupole deformation. Measurement of octupole deformations of highly deformed nuclei can answer the question of whether these nuclei exist in cluster configurations.