Identification of the rare neutron-rich isotopeRh117

Excited levels in the multishaped Pd117 nucleus studied via β decay of Rh117

“…A β half-life of 0.44(4) s was measured and three γ rays of 34.6, 131.7, and 481.6 keV were ascribed to the decay of 117 Rh [10]. Later a similar β-decay half-life of 394 +47 −43 ms was reported for 117 Rh produced by the fragmentation of a 136 Xe beam [34].…”

“…[11,55] and later in the discussion of the low-energy states populated by the 117 Rh β − decay [10,12]. Five transitions of energies 34, 71, 97, 131, and 168 keV were ascribed to the decay of the isomer.…”

“…The results of Refs. [10][11][12]55] summarized above, came from the simultaneous spectroscopy studies of all the neutron-rich nuclei in the A = 117 isobaric chain since the best mass resolving power of the available separation techniques was limited to select isobars, only. The production rate of the isomer in 117 Pd was estimated one order of magnitude higher than the production rate of 117 Rh [12].…”

“…That some shape changes may occur in the Pd isotopes was already suggested by the extraordinary changes in the hindrance factors of isomeric transitions in 103−117 Pd isotopes, which vary more than four orders of magnitude [10][11][12][13]. In these early works, it was assumed that in all these Pd isotopes spins of isomeric levels were 11/2 − , corresponding to the spherical νh 11/2 excitation.…”

“…[2] Skalski et al pointed to strong shape variations due to the predicted coexistence of prolate and oblate potential minima and a γ softness expected in Mo-Pd nuclei. Many examples of these phenomena have been observed experimentally in the 100 < A < 120 region, especially effects related to γ softness and triaxiality in neutron-rich Mo-Pd isotopes [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”