Restoring the valence-shell stabilization in Nd 140

Abstract

A projectile Coulomb-excitation experiment was performed at the radioactive-ion beam facility HIE-ISOLDE at CERN to obtain E2 and M1 transition matrix elements of Nd140 using the multistep Coulomb-excitation code gosia. The absolute M1 strengths, B(M1;22+→21+)=0.033(8)μN2,B(M1;23+→21+)=0.26-0.10+0.11μN2, and B(M1;24+→21+)<0.04μN2, identify the 23+ state as the main fragment of the one-quadrupole-phonon proton-neutron mixed-symmetry state of Nd140. The degree of F-spin mixing in Nd140 was quantified with the determination of the mixing matrix element VF-mix<7-7+13keV.