Octupole signatures in Ba-124,Ba-125

The gamma decay of the nuclei Ba-121,Ba-125 has been investigated with the EUROBALL array, using the reaction Ni-64+Ni-64 at E-beam = 255 and 261 MeV. Six new E1 transitions have been found in the nucleus Ba-125, suggesting a significant role of octupole correlations in the origin of its parity doublets. The J(pi) = 3(-) level of the nucleus Ba-124 has been identified for the first time. Its excitation energy is in very good agreement with a prediction based on a microscopic model including octupole interactions.