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High-energy scissors mode

All the orbital M1 excitations, at both low and high energies, obtained from a rotationally invariant QRPA, represent the fragmented scissors mode. The high-energy M1 strength is almost purely orbital and resides in the region of the isovector giant quadrupole resonance. In heavy deformed nuclei the high-energy scissors mode is strongly fragmented between 17 and 25 MeV (with uncertainties arising from the poor knowledge of the isovector potential). The coherent scissors motion is hindered by the fragmentation and $B(M1) < 0.25 \; μ^2_N$ for single transitions in this region. The $(e,e^{\prime})$ cross sections for excitations above 17 MeV are one order of magnitude larger for E2 than for M1 excitations even at backward angles.