Chirality in 136,138Pm

Abstract One of the enticing manifestations of broken symmetries in atomic nuclei is the chiral doublet bands. We investigate such bands in 136Pm and 138Pm, to understand the underlying geometries and their correlations with the single-particle configurations. We identify such correlations leading to vibrational or static nature of chirality. Chirality withstands higher spins in 136Pm, unlike 138Pm. Our present calculations for 138Pm, confirm the newly assigned spin and parity 9 + state as band-head of the yrast band, based on { π h 11 / 2 ⊗ ν h 11 / 2 } configuration.