Coexisting normal and intruder configurations in ${}^{32}$Mg

Abstract

Situated in the so-called "island of inversion," the nucleus ${}^{32}$Mg is considered as an archetypal example of the disappearance of magicity at $N=20$. We report on high statistics in-beam spectroscopy of ${}^{32}$Mg with a unique approach, in that two direct reaction probes with different sensitivities to the underlying nuclear structure are employed at the same time. More specifically, states in ${}^{32}$Mg were populated by knockout reactions starting from ${}^{33}$Mg and ${}^{34}$Si, lying inside and outside the island of inversion, respectively. The momentum distributions of the reaction residues and the cross sections leading to the individual final states were confronted with eikonal-based reaction calculations, yielding a significantly updated level scheme for ${}^{32}$Mg and spin-parity assignments. By fully exploiting observables obtained in this measurement, a variety of structures coexisting in 32Mg was unraveled. Comparisons with theoretical predictions based on shell-model overlaps allowed for clear discrimination between different structural models, revealing that the complete theoretical description of this key nucleus is yet to be achieved.

References in corpus (7)

• Nuclear magic numbers: new features far from stability
• Discovery of the shape coexisting 0+ state in 32Mg by a two neutron transfer reaction
• Systematics of intermediate-energy single-nucleon removal cross sections
• Unveiling the intruder deformed 0${}_2^{+}$ state in ${}^{34}$Si
• Migration of nuclear shell gaps studied in the d(24Ne,p gamma)25Ne reaction
• UCGretina GEANT4 Simulation of the GRETINA Gamma-Ray Energy Tracking Array
• The Structure of ${}^{33}$Si and the magicity of the N=20 gap at Z=14