No Arabic abstract
Proton-scattering experiments followed by the coincident spectroscopy of $gamma$ rays have been performed at the Institute for Nuclear Physics of the University of Cologne to excite low-spin states in $^{112}$Sn and $^{114}$Sn, to determine their lifetimes and extract reduced transitions strengths $B(Pi L)$. The combined spectroscopy setup SONIC@HORUS has been used to detect the scattered protons and the emitted $gamma$ rays of excited states in coincidence. The novel $(p,pgamma)$ DSA coincidence technique was employed to measure sub-ps nuclear level lifetimes. 74 level lifetimes $tau$ of states with $J = 0 - 6$ were determined. In addition, branching ratios were deduced which allowed the investigation of the intruder configuration in both nuclei. Here, $sd$ IBM-2 mixing calculations were added which support the coexistence of the two configurations. Furthermore, members of the expected QOC quintuplet are proposed in $^{114}$Sn for the first time. The $1^-$ candidate in $^{114}$Sn fits perfectly into the systematics observed for the other stable Sn isotopes. The $E2$ transition strengths observed for the low-spin members of the so-called intruder band support the existence of shape coexistence in $^{112,114}$Sn. The collectivity in this configuration is comparable to the one observed in the Pd nuclei, i.e. the 0p-4h nuclei. Strong mixing between the $0^+$ states of the normal and intruder configuration might be observed in $^{114}$Sn. The general existence of QOC states in $^{112,114}$Sn is supported by the observation of QOC candidates with $J eq 1$.
The low-lying structure of semi-magic $^{118}$Sn has been investigated through the $beta$-decay of $^{118}$In ($T_{1/2}=4.45$ min) to study shape coexistence via the reduced transition probabilities of states in the 2p-2h proton intruder band. This high-statistics study was carried out at TRIUMF-ISAC with the GRIFFIN spectrometer. In total, 99 transitions have been placed in the level scheme with 43 being newly observed. Three low-lying $gamma$-ray transitions with energies near 285 keV have been resolved from which the 2$^+_{mathrm{intr.}} rightarrow 0^+_{mathrm{intr.}}$ 284.52-keV transition was determined to have half of the previous branching fraction leading to a $B(E2;2^+_2rightarrow 0^+_2)$ of 21(4) W.u. compared to 39(7) W.u. from the previous measurement. Calculations using $sd$ IBM-2 with mixing have also been made to compare the experimental $B(E2)$ values to the theoretical values and to make comparisons to the $^{114,116}$Sn isotopes previously studied using the same theoretical model.
The double Penning trap mass spectrometer JYFLTRAP has been employed to measure masses and excitation energies for $11/2^-$ isomers in $^{121}$Cd, $^{123}$Cd, $^{125}$Cd and $^{133}$Te, for $1/2^-$ isomers in $^{129}$In and $^{131}$In, and for $7^-$ isomers in $^{130}$Sn and $^{134}$Sb. These first direct mass measurements of the Cd and In isomers reveal deviations to the excitation energies based on results from beta-decay experiments and yield new information on neutron- and proton-hole states close to $^{132}$Sn. A new excitation energy of 144(4) keV has been determined for $^{123}$Cd$^m$. A good agreement with the precisely known excitation energies of $^{121}$Cd$^m$, $^{130}$Sn$^m$, and $^{134}$Sb$^m$ has been found.
In this article a method for lifetime measurements in the sub-picosecond regime via the Doppler-shift attenuation method (DSAM) following the inelastic proton scattering reaction is presented. In a pioneering experiment we extracted the lifetimes of 30 excited low-spin states of $^{96}$Ru, taking advantage of the coincident detection of scattered protons and de-exciting $gamma$-rays as well as the large number of particle and $gamma$-ray detectors provided by the SONIC@HORUS setup at the University of Cologne. The large amount of new experimental data shows that this technique is suited for the measurement of lifetimes of excited low-spin states, especially for isotopes with a low isotopic abundance, where $(n,n^{prime}gamma$) or - in case of investigating dipole excitations - ($gamma,gamma^{prime}$) experiments are not feasible due to the lack of sufficient isotopically enriched target material.
The electric quadrupole response in $^{112,114}$Sn isotopes is investigated by energy-density functional (EDF) and three-phonon quasiparticle-phonon model (QPM) theory with special emphasis on 2$^+$ excitations located above the first collective quadrupole state and below 5 MeV. Additional quadrupole strength clustering as a sequence of states similar to the recently observed pygmy quadrupole resonance in $^{124}$Sn is found. The spectral distributions and transition densities of these 2$^+$ states show special features being compatible with oscillations of a neutron skin against the isospin-symmetric nuclear core. Furthermore, two new ($p$, $p gamma$) Doppler-shift attenuation (DSA) coincidence experiments were performed at the SONIC@HORUS setup. Quadrupole states with excitation energies up to 4.2 MeV were populated in $^{112,114}$Sn. Lifetimes and branching ratios were measured allowing for the determination of the reduced quadrupole transition strengths to the ground state. A stringent comparison of the new data to EDF+QPM theory in $^{112}$Sn and $^{114}$Sn isotopes hints at the occurrence of a low-energy quadrupole mode of unique character which could be interpreted as pygmy quadrupole resonance.
The electromagnetic structure of $^{140}$Sm was studied in a low-energy Coulomb excitation experiment with a radioactive ion beam from the REX-ISOLDE facility at CERN. The $2^+$ and $4^+$ states of the ground-state band and a second $2^+$ state were populated by multi-step excitation. The analysis of the differential Coulomb excitation cross sections yielded reduced transition probabilities between all observed states and the spectroscopic quadrupole moment for the $2_1^+$ state. The experimental results are compared to large-scale shell model calculations and beyond-mean-field calculations based on the Gogny D1S interaction with a five-dimensional collective Hamiltonian formalism. Simpler geometric and algebraic models are also employed to interpret the experimental data. The results indicate that $^{140}$Sm shows considerable $gamma$ softness, but in contrast to earlier speculation no signs of shape coexistence at low excitation energy. This work sheds more light on the onset of deformation and collectivity in this mass region.