Population and decay of a = 8 two-quasineutron isomer in Pu

Hota, S.*; Tandel, S.*; Chowdhury, P.*; Ahmad, I.*; Carpenter, M. P.*; Chiara, C. J.*; Greene, J. P.*; Hoffman, C. R.*; Jackson, E. G.*; Janssens, R. V. F.*; et al.

Physical Review C, 94(2), p.021303_1 - 021303_5, 2016/08

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.94.021303

The decay of a = 8 isomer in Pu and the collective band structure populating the isomer are studied using deep inelastic excitations with Ti and Pb beams, respectively. Precise measurements of branching ratios in the band confirm a clean 9/2[734]7/2[624] for the isomer, validating the systematics of K = 8 two-quasineutron isomers observed in even-, = 150 isotones. These isomers around the deformed shell gap at = 152 provide critical benchmarks for theoretical predictions of single-particle energies in this gateway region to superheavy nuclei.