A brief review of intruder rotational bands and magnetic rotation in the A = 110 mass region

Abstract

Nuclei in the A ∼ 110 mass region exhibit interesting structural features. One of these relates to the process by which specific configurations, built on the excitation of one or more protons across the Z = 50 shell-gap, manifest as collective rotational bands at intermediate spins and gradually lose their collectivity with increase in spin and terminate in a non-collective state at the maximum spin which the configuration can support. These bands are called terminating bands that co-exist with spherical states. Some of these bands are said to terminate smoothly underlining the continuous character of the process by which the band evolves from significant collectivity at low spin to a pure particle-hole non-collective state at the highest spin. The neutron-deficient A ∼ 110 mass region provides the best examples of smoothly terminating bands. The present experimental and theoretical status of such bands in several nuclei with 48 ≤ Z ≤ 52 spanning the 106 ≤ A ≤ 119 mass region have been reviewed in this article. The other noteworthy feature of nuclei in the A ∼ 110 mass region is the observation of regular rotation-like sequences of strongly enhanced magnetic dipole transitions in near-spherical nuclei. These bands, unlike the well-studied rotational sequences in deformed nuclei, arise from a spontaneous symmetry breaking by the anisotropic currents of a few high-j excited particles and holes. This mode of excitation is called magnetic rotation and was first reported in the Pb region. Evidence in favor of the existence of such structures, also called shears bands, are reported in the literature for a large number of Cd, In, Sn and Sb isotope with A ∼ 110. The present article provides a general overview of these reported structures across this mass region. The review also discusses antimagnetic rotation bands and a few cases of octupole correlations in the A = 110 mass region.