TWO-HOLE TWO-PARTICLE LEVELS IN Pb208

The energy levels of Pb208 arising from certain two-hole two-particle shell-model configurations have been predicted theoretically. It is concluded that only a few such levels are expected in Pb208 and all of them have energies greater than or about equal to 6 Mev. The closed-shell core was included in the J = 0+ energy matrix in order to get an estimate of the two-body correlations in the ground state. Only a few per cent of higher configurations is predicted for the ground-state wave function.