Moments of inertia in $sup 162$Yb at very high spins

Two methods have been used to obtain values of the effective moment of inertia of very-high-spin (20h-bar--50h-bar) states populated in heavy-ion compound-nucleus reactions. The $sup 162$Yb nucleus studied has effective moments of inertia smaller than, but approaching, the rigid-body estimate. (AIP)