Early Signal of Emerging Nuclear Collectivity in Neutron-Rich ^{129}Sb

Radioactive ^{129}Sb, which can be treated as a proton plus semimagic ^{128}Sn core within the particle-core coupling scheme, was studied by Coulomb excitation. Reduced electric quadrupole transition probabilities, B(E2), for the 2^{+}⊗πg_{7/2} multiplet members and candidate πd_{5/2} state were measured. The results indicate that the total electric quadrupole strength of ^{129}Sb is a factor of 1.39(11) larger than the ^{128}Sn core, which is in stark contrast to the expectations of the empirically successful particle-core coupling scheme. Shell-model calculations performed with two different sets of nucleon-nucleon interactions suggest that this enhanced collectivity is due to constructive quadrupole coherence in the wave functions stemming from the proton-neutron residual interactions, where adding one nucleon to a core near a double-shell closure can have a pronounced effect. The enhanced electric quadrupole strength is an early signal of the emerging nuclear collectivity that becomes dominant away from the shell closure.

Electromagnetic Moments of Radioactive ^{136}Te and the Emergence of Collectivity 2p⊕2n Outside of Double-Magic ^{132}Sn

Radioactive ^{136}Te has two valence protons and two valence neutrons outside of the ^{132}Sn double shell closure, providing a simple laboratory for exploring the emergence of collectivity and nucleon-nucleon interactions. Coulomb excitation of ^{136}Te on a titanium target was utilized to determine an extensive set of electromagnetic moments for the three lowest-lying states, including B(E2;0_{1}^{+}→2_{1}^{+}), Q(2_{1}^{+}), and g(2_{1}^{+}). The results indicate that the first-excited state, 2_{1}^{+}, composed of the simple 2p⊕2n system, is prolate deformed, and its wave function is dominated by excited valence neutron configurations, but not to the extent previously suggested. It is demonstrated that extreme sensitivity of g(2_{1}^{+}) to the proton and neutron contributions to the wave function provides unique insight into the nature of emerging collectivity, and g(2_{1}^{+}) was used to differentiate among several state-of-the-art theoretical calculations. Our results are best described by the most recent shell model calculations.

Magnetism of an excited self-conjugate nucleus: precise measurement of the g factor of the 2(1)(+) state in (24)Mg

A precise measurement of the g factor of the first-excited state in the self-conjugate (N=Z) nucleus (24)Mg is performed by a new time-differential recoil-in-vacuum method based on the hyperfine field of hydrogenlike ions. Theory predicts that the g factors of such states, in which protons and neutrons occupy the same orbits, should depart from 0.5 by a few percent due to configuration mixing and meson-exchange effects. The experimental result, g=0.538±0.013, is in excellent agreement with recent shell-model calculations and shows a departure from 0.5 by almost 3 standard deviations, thus achieving, for the first time, the precision and accuracy needed to test theory. Proof of the new method opens the way for wide applications including measurements of the magnetism of excited states of exotic nuclei produced as radioactive beams.

First nuclear moment measurement with radioactive beams by the recoil-in-vacuum technique: the g factor of the 2+1 state in 132Te

Following Coulomb excitation of the radioactive ion beam (RIB) 132Te at HRIBF we report the first use of the recoil-in-vacuum (RIV) method to determine the g factor of the 2(+)(1) state: g(973.9 keV 2(+) 132Te) = (+)0.35(5). The advantages offered by the RIV method in the context of RIBs and modern detector arrays are discussed.