100 Years of Nuclear Isomers

The nuclear isomers are long-lived excited states, with half-lives ranging from nanoseconds to years. The reason behind their existence may vary from a region-to-region on the basis of hindrance mechanisms and nucleonic surroundings. Understanding the existence of isomers can shed light on both the basic modes of nucleonic motion, single-nucleon as well as collective, and their interplay....

Penning-trap mass spectrometry offers a way to determine excitation energies of isomeric states via high-precision mass measurements. The method is very useful for beta-decaying isomers with half-lives longer than around 100 ms. Excitation energies of such isomers are often challenging to unambiguously determine with other techniques. Penning-trap mass spectrometry can also reveal new isomeric...

Much attention has been drawn in recent years to the heaviest known self-conjugate nucleus, 100Sn, and its implications on nuclear structure models. Various decay experiments have been conducted to study the nucleus’ expected doubly-magic character of the closed proton and neutron shells. Direct measurements by means of mass-spectrometry or laser-spectroscopy are challenging due to its short...