Are there signatures of harmonic oscillator shells far from stability?; First spectroscopy of Zr

Paul, N.*; Corsi, A.*; Obertelli, A.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Authelet, G.*; 馬場 秀忠*; Bally, B.*; Bender, M.*; Calvet, D.*; Chteau, F.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 118(3), p.032501_1 - 032501_7, 2017/01

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.032501

The first measurement of rays emitted by the very neutron rich nuclei Mo (Z=42) and Zr (Z=40) was carried out at the RIBF facility at RIKEN. These data shine light on the postulated N=70 harmonic oscillator shell. If the spin-orbit splitting which gives rise to the N=82 shell gap is reduced in very neutron-rich nuclei, the harmonic oscillator gap at N=70 should open instead. However, both the measured energy of the first excited state Mo and Zr, respectively 235(7) keV and 185(11) keV, and their E(4)/E(2) ratio, indicate that these nuclei are good rotors, and exclude the shell stabilization scenario at Z=40 and N=70. These results were compared to state-of-the-art density functional theoretical calculations using Gogny and Skyrme effective interactions.