On the inelastic excitation of 2− state of 16O by α particles

The excitation of the unnatural parity state (2^?, 8.87 MeV) of ¹⁶O by inelastic scattering of 40 MeV α particle is investigated microscopically. The two step excitation mechanism via the 3^? state at 6.13 MeV is found to reproduce the magnitude of the measured cross section of the 2^- excitation. The α-nucleon interaction used for the 2^- excitation also reproduces the 3^- excitation.