Low-spin excited states of ¹⁴⁰Nd have been studied via the ¹⁴⁰Ce(³He,3n)¹⁴⁰Nd reaction. The results from the data analysis show that one of the candidates for the one-phonon mixed symmetry state of ¹⁴⁰Nd, namely the 2⁺₃ state at 2140 keV with an effective lifetime of 220(90) fs, decay with a fast M1 transition to the 2⁺₁ state. Therefore consequently this state can be treated as, at least a fragment of the one-phonon MSS of ¹⁴⁰Nd. This is the first example where mixed symmetry character is tentatively assigned to a state of an unstable nucleus from the mass A ≈ 140 region based on the data on absolute M1 transition rates.
