Linkage between beta and gamma vibrational excitations in deformed nuclei.

The consistent {ital Q} formalism of the interacting boson model (IBA) is systematically confronted with data on deformed vibrational states and found to be empirically supported. Exploiting this, we test a central IBA prediction, which is in stark contrast with traditional models, of an inherent linkage between the properties of the {beta} and {gamma} vibrations, and find this linkage to be confirmed by the data.