Excitation of ground and gamma bands in the 24Mg(α, α')24Mg reaction at 120 MeV

The cross sections for excitation of the members of the ground state (g.s.) band 0^?(g.s.), 2⁺ (1.37 MeV) and 4⁺ (4.12 MeV) and the γ-band 2⁺_γ (4.24 MeV), 3_γ⁺(5.24 MeV) and 4_γ⁺(6.01 MeV) in ²⁴Mg have been measured in inelastic α-scattering at E_α = 120 MeV. The excitation of these states are found to be well described by a coupled-channel calculation (CCBA) performed in the framework of the asymmetric rotational model. Two sets of parameters are found to give excellent fits to the data, but in both a direct coupling between the ground state and the 4⁺ state is found necessary.