First measurement of a magnetic moment of a short-lived state with an accelerated radioactive beam: Kr-76

The understanding of the structure of nuclei very far-from-stability constitutes the next major challenge in the description of nucleon interactions resulting in low lying excited states. New techniques of measurement of magnetic moments of short-lived nuclear states combining Coulomb excitations of beams and the transient hyperfine magnetic interaction have led to the determination of magnetic moments of low-lying, short-lived, states with a precision that can distinguish between various theoretical calculations. The technique is particularly applicable to the study of radioactive beams and was used for the first time to measure the g factor of the 2(1)(+) state of Kr-76. The Kr-76 beam was produced and accelerated in batch mode at the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory 88-Inch cyclotron. Peak rates of 108 particles/s were obtained yielding a g factor measurement of g((76); 2(1)(+)) = 0.37(11).