Coulomb Excitation of 68,70Cu: First Use of Post-accelerated Isomeric Beams
Phys. Rev. Lett.
We report on the first low-energy Coulomb excitation measurements with radioactive 𝐼𝜋 =6− beams of odd-odd nuclei
68,70
Cu
. The beams were produced at ISOLDE, CERN and were post-accelerated by REX-ISOLDE to 2.83 MeV/nucleon. 𝛾 rays were detected with the MINIBALL spectrometer. The 6− beam was used to study the multiplet of states (3−, 4−, 5−, 6−) arising from the 𝜋2𝑝3/2𝜈1𝑔9/2 configuration. The 4− state of the multiplet was populated via Coulomb excitation and the 𝐵(𝐸2;6− →4−) value was determined in both nuclei. The results obtained illustrate the fragile stability of the 𝑍 =28 shell and 𝑁 =40 subshell closures. A comparison with large-scale shell-model calculations using the
56
Ni
core shows the importance of the proton excitations across the 𝑍 =28 shell gap to the understanding of the nuclear structure in the neutron-rich nuclei with 𝑁 ≈40.