Lifetime of the 981-keV State in ${\mathrm{Li}}^8$

The lifetime of the 981-keV state in ${\mathrm{Li}}^8$ produced in the $\mathrm{D}({\mathrm{Li}}^7,p){\mathrm{Li}}^{8*}$ reaction was measured by the two-backing variant of the Doppler-shift attenuation method. The resulting mean life was ${\tau }_m=10.1\mathrm{}\pm 4.5$ fsec. This result is in agreement with the shell-model prediction of Cohen and Kurath, and also with that of Barker. The large error limits preclude a detailed test of either prediction.