First identification of dipole excitations to a 2(

A photon scattering experiment has been performed on the odd-A nucleus $^{143}\mathrm{Nd}$. Strong dipole excitations have been detected in the energy region around 3.2 MeV. This is near the expected position of the two-phonon (${2}^{+}$\ensuremath{\bigotimes}${3}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$) multiplet in the even-even neighboring nucleus $^{142}\mathrm{Nd}$. The summed dipole strength between 2.8 and 3.6 MeV in $^{143}\mathrm{Nd}$ is in agreement with the sum rule for weak particle coupling to the core nucleus $^{142}\mathrm{Nd}$. Model calculations in a harmonic approximation are in a very good agreement with the experiment and they suggest a two-phonon (${2}^{+}$\ensuremath{\bigotimes}${3}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}}$) particle structure of the excitations in $^{143}\mathrm{Nd}$.