  Large scale shell model calculations in two major oscillator shells (sd and
pf) describe simultaneously the super-deformed excited band of 36Ar and its
low-lying states of dominant sd character. In addition, several two particle
two hole states and a side band of negative parity are also well reproduced. We
explain the appearance of the super-deformed band at such low excitation energy
as a consequence of the very large correlation energy of the configurations
with many particles and many holes (np-nh) relative to the normal filling of
the spherical mean field orbits (0p-0h). We study the mechanism of mixing
between these different configurations, to understand why the super-deformed
band survives and how it finally decays into the low-lying sd-dominated states
via the indirect mixing of the 0p-0h and 4p-4h configurations.
