Investigating the nuclear structure of 116,118Te

Abstract

The ^116,118Te isotopes, similar to the Cd mid-shell isotopes which are their mirror partners across the 𝑍 =50 shell, show vibrational features on their ground-band states. However, recent density functional theory calculations and proxy-SU(3) studies also predict shape coexistence in these nuclei. More experimental data are needed in order to verify this. An experiment was conducted at the 9MV Tandem Accelerator at IFIN-HH in Magurele, Romania, in order to populate excited states in ^116,118Te by the fusion evaporation reaction mechanism. An ¹¹B beam at beam energy of 35 MeV was impinged on a ^107,109Ag target. The subsequent gamma decay was detected using the RoSPHERE array, equipped with 15 HPGe and 10 LaBr₃(Ce) detectors. The experiment provided data for spectroscopic analysis and highlighted the need for further refinement in experimental techniques, potentially incorporating the plunger technique to measure the ground-state band lifetimes in the future. In this contribution the gamma-spectroscopy analysis on ^116,118Te will be presented. Consecutive work will focus on fast-timing measurements to determine the lifetimes of excited states.