A highly-deformed band in {sup 131}Pr

A highly-deformed rotational band has been discovered in the odd-Z nucleus {sup 131}Pr. The experiment was performed at the Chalk River TASCC facility with the 8{pi} {gamma}-ray spectrometer and a charged-particle detector array based on CsI(Tl) crystals and large-area photodiodes. The rotational sequence, characterized by strong regularly spaced {Delta}J=1 transitions and weak E2 crossovers, has a moment of inertia characteristic of large deformation. It extends to hw=0.17 MeV, the lowest frequency of the known superdeformed bands in the A{approx}135 Ce-Nd region. The assignment to {sup 131} Pr was based on several two-dimensionaly-{gamma}{gamma} matrices gated by different charged-particle conditions. Further properties of this band are being investigated.