Recent experimental data have demonstrated that ^76Ge may be a rare example of a nucleus exhibiting rigid γ-deformation in the low-spin regime. In the present work, the experimental analysis is supported by microscopic calculations using the multi-quasiparticle triaxial projected shell model (TPSM) approach. It is shown that to best describe the data of both yrast and γ-vibrational bands in ^76Ge, a rigid-triaxial deformation parameter γ≈ 30^∘ is required. TPSM calculations are discussed in

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... unction with the experimental observations and also with the published results from the spherical shell model. The occurrence of a γγ-band in ^76Ge is predicted with the bandhead at an excitation energy of ∼ 2.5 MeV. We have also performed TPSM study for the neighboring Ge- and Se-isotopes and the distinct γ-soft feature in these nuclei is shown to result from configuration mixing of the ground-state with multi-quasiparticle states.