Panoramic New Vistas of Nuclei in and Near Their Ground States

Abstract

A panoramic overview of the new insights being gained from nuclei in and near their ground states as if taken with a fish-eye camera, to see the landscape in a broad prospective is given. The extension of our knowledge of the properties of nuclei in and near their ground states still farther off stability are continuing to reveal challenging surprises and unexpected diversities of nuclear shapes and structure that could not be seen by studying nuclei in and near the valley of beta stability. These include the discovery of new magic numbers which stabilize the nucleus for a spherical shape and the continuation of the importance of some and disappearance of other well-established spherical magic numbers along with the establishment of new magic numbers now associated with deformed shapes. Superdeformation, nuclei with 3:2 axis ratios and β ∼ 0.4, is well established in the ground states and excited states of nuclei in the islands of superdeformation centered on the new deformed double magic numbers Z=N=38 and Z=38, N=60,62. Superdeformation, which has attracted so much attention at very high spins, is not only seen in nuclear ground states in these islands but in excited states beginning at spins as low as 4+ and 6+, for example in 72Se and 194Pb, respectively. The importance of the reinforcement of the protons and neutrons when they have shell gaps for the same spherical or deformed shape in stabilizing that shape is clearly seen.KeywordsNuclear OrientationNeutron HaloNeutron Drip LineScissor ModeProton Drip LineThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.