Abstract
Energy differences between analogue states in the mirror nuclei have been measured along the rotational yrast bands. This allows us to search for effects arising from isospin-symmetry-breaking interactions (ISB) and/or shape changes. Data are interpreted in the shell model framework following the method successfully applied to nuclei in the shell. It is shown that the introduction of a schematic ISB interaction of the same type of that used in the shell is needed to reproduce the data. An alternative novel description, applied here for the first time, relies on the use of an effective interaction deduced from a realistic charge-dependent chiral nucleon-nucleon potential. This analysis provides two important results: (i) The mirror energy differences give direct insight into the nuclear skin; (ii) the skin changes along the rotational bands are strongly correlated with the difference between the neutron and proton occupations of the “halo” orbit.
- Received 13 April 2018
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.032502
© 2018 American Physical Society