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. 2021 Dec 24;127(26):262502.
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.262502.

First Observation of the Four-Proton Unbound Nucleus ^{18}Mg

Affiliations

First Observation of the Four-Proton Unbound Nucleus ^{18}Mg

Y Jin et al. Phys Rev Lett. .

Abstract

^{18}Mg was observed, for the first time, by the invariant-mass reconstruction of ^{14}O+4p events. The ground-state decay energy and width are E_{T}=4.865(34) MeV and Γ=115(100) keV, respectively. The observed momentum correlations between the five particles are consistent with two sequential steps of prompt 2p decay passing through the ground state of ^{16}Ne. The invariant-mass spectrum also provides evidence for an excited state at an excitation energy of 1.84(14) MeV, which is likely the first excited 2^{+} state. As this energy exceeds that for the 2^{+} state in ^{20}Mg, this observation provides an argument for the demise of the N=8 shell closure in nuclei far from stability. However, in open systems this classical argument for shell strength is compromised by Thomas-Ehrman shifts.

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