The observation of vibrating pear shapes in radon nuclei: update

Abstract

There is a large body of evidence that atomic nuclei can undergo octupole distortion and assume the shape of a pear. This phenomenon is important for measurements of electric-dipole moments of atoms, which would indicate CP violation and hence probe physics beyond the standard model of particle physics. Isotopes of both radon and radium have been identified as candidates for such measurements. Here, we have observed the low-lying quantum states in ${}^{224}$Rn and ${}^{226}$Rn by accelerating beams of these radioactive nuclei. We report here additional states not assigned in our 2019 publication. We show that radon isotopes undergo octupole vibrations but do not possess static pear-shapes in their ground states. We conclude that radon atoms provide less favourable conditions for the enhancement of a measurable atomic electric-dipole moment.

arXiv commentUpdated from Nat. Comm. 10 (2019) 2473

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Evolution of Octupole Deformation in Radium Nuclei from Coulomb Excitation of Radioactive ${}^{222}$Ra and ${}^{228}$Ra Beams
• Landscape of pear-shaped even-even nuclei
• Probing Fundamental Symmetries of Deformed Nuclei in Symmetric Top Molecules
• Nuclear shell-model simulation in digital quantum computers
• Misconceptions, knowledge, and attitudes of secondary school students towards the phenomenon of radioactivity
• Origin of octupole deformation softness in atomic nuclei
• Beyond-mean-field description of octupolarity in dysprosium isotopes with the Gogny-D1M energy density functional
• A Quantum Annealing Protocol to Solve the Nuclear Shell Model
• Scientific Opportunities at the ARIEL Electron Linac
• Nuclear Electric Quadrupole Moment-Induced Parity Doubling in Molecules for Symmetry-Violation Searches
• Radioactive Molecules as Laboratories of Fundamental Physics