Scissors Modes: The elusive breathing overtone

The Two-Rotor Model predicts two levels above the Scissors Modes with degenerate intrinsic energy. They have $J^{\pi}= 0^+,2^+$ and are referred to as overtones. Their energy is below threshold for nucleon emission, which should make them observable. The $J^{\pi}=0^+$ overtone, that has the structure of an isovector breathing mode, has vanishing $E0$ amplitude so that cannot be directly excited, but it could be reached in the decay of the $J=2^+$ overtone. We discuss such a process and evaluate the $B(E2)$ strength, which, however, turns out to be very small.