Speaker
Description
Systematic measurements of the γ-ray strength function have shown a strong change of the low-energy enhancement (LEE) as a function of nuclear deformation. In an attempt to explore this behavior further, we performed a series of experimental studies in neutron-rich Zr isotopes, namely $^{97-100}\mathrm{Zr}$. These isotopes are in a region of abrupt deformation change from mostly spherical to highly deformed. As such, they are ideal for further exploring the deformation-dependence of the LEE. The experiments took place at the Argonne National Laboratory using the CARIBU facility. The nuclei of interest were populated using the $\beta$ decay of $^{97-100}\mathrm{Y}$ isotopes and the SuN total absorption spectrometer was used to measure the emitted $\gamma$ rays. We used the $\beta$ Oslo method to simultaneously extract the Nuclear Level Density and $\gamma$-ray Strength Function for each isotope. In this talk I will present first surprising results on these systematics studies.