Shape coexistence in the nickel (Z=28) and mercury (Z=80) regions probed through decay studies KU Leuven
In the last 60 years, the understanding of shape coexistence, a phenomenon when low-lying nuclear structures are exhibiting different deformations, evolved from being a rarity which occurs only in selected nuclei, to an almost universal property throughout the whole chart of nuclides. There are many fingerprints pointing toward shape coexistence in the nucleus, with the spectroscopic quadrupole moment being the most important. This phenomenon ...