Suppression of Gamow-Teller and M1 transitions in deformed mirror nuclei Mg-25 and Al-25 - Direct observation of K selection rules
The mirror nuclei Mg-25 and Al-25 are expected to have very similar structures. The Gamow-Teller (GT) transitions from the J(pi) = 5/2(+) ground state of Mg-25 to the excited states in Al-25 were studied by high-resolution measurements of the Mg-25(He-3,t) charge-exchange reaction at 0degrees and at 140 MeV/nucleon. Assuming the usual DeltaJ(pi) = 1(+) selection rule for the spin-isospin-type GT transitions, the states with J(pi) = 3/2(+), 5/2(+), and 7/2 (+) should be excited. However, of the more than ten states with these J(pi) values below 6 MeV excitation energy, only the 5/2 (+) ground state and the 7/2 (+) , 1.613 MeV state in Al-25 were strongly populated, while all other states were strongly suppressed. The analysis of M1 transitions in Mg-25 also suggested a very similar feature for the analogous M1 transitions. Both Mg-25 and Al-25 are known to be largely deformed, and most low-lying states can be interpreted in terms of one-particle quantum numbers in the deformed potential and the associated rotational spectra. The observed suppression can be explained in terms of the K quantum number selection rules that are inherent to axially deformed nuclei.