Orbital Dependent Nucleonic Pairing in the Lightest Known Isotopes of Tin

I. G. Darby, R. K. Grzywacz, J. C. Batchelder, C. R. Bingham, L. Cartegni, C. J. Gross, M. Hjorth-Jensen, D. T. Joss, S. N. Liddick, W. Nazarewicz, S. Padgett, R. D. Page, T. Papenbrock, M. M. Rajabali, J. Rotureau, and K. P. Rykaczewski

Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 162502 – Published 12 October 2010

Abstract

By studying the ${}^{109}{Xe} \to {}^{105}{Te} \to {}^{101}{Sn}$ superallowed $α$ -decay chain, we observe low-lying states in ${}^{101}{Sn}$ , the one-neutron system outside doubly magic ${}^{100}{Sn}$ . We find that the spins of the ground state ( $J = 7 / 2$ ) and first excited state ( $J = 5 / 2$ ) in ${}^{101}{Sn}$ are reversed with respect to the traditional level ordering postulated for ${}^{103}{Sn}$ and the heavier tin isotopes. Through simple arguments and state-of-the-art shell-model calculations we explain this unexpected switch in terms of a transition from the single-particle regime to the collective mode in which orbital-dependent pairing correlations dominate.

Received 14 August 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.162502

Authors & Affiliations

I. G. Darby^1,2, R. K. Grzywacz^1,3, J. C. Batchelder⁴, C. R. Bingham^1,3, L. Cartegni¹, C. J. Gross³, M. Hjorth-Jensen⁵, D. T. Joss⁶, S. N. Liddick¹, W. Nazarewicz^1,3,7, S. Padgett¹, R. D. Page⁶, T. Papenbrock^1,3, M. M. Rajabali¹, J. Rotureau¹, and K. P. Rykaczewski³

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
²Instituut voor Kern- en Stralingsfysica, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium
³Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
⁴UNIRIB, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
⁵Department of Physics and Center of Mathematics for Applications, University of Oslo, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
⁶Oliver Lodge Laboratory, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZE, United Kingdom
⁷Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Warsaw, Hoża 69, PL-00681 Warsaw, Poland

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Vol. 105, Iss. 16 — 15 October 2010

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