https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-023-01172-8
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Shape evolution in even-mass 
Zr isotopes via lifetime measurements using the 
-coincidence technique
1
IJCLab, IN2P3/CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France
2
IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
3
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
4
Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPHC UMR 7178, Strasbourg, France
5
Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds, CEA/DRF-CNRS/IN2P3, Caen, France
6
Université Lyon, Université Lyon-1, CNRS/IN2P3, UMR5822, IP2I, Villeurbanne, France
7
Departamento de Estructura de la Materia, Física Térmica y Electrónica and IPARCOS, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
8
Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
9
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany
10
School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, Brighton University, Brighton, UK
11
Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
12
Institut für Kernphysik, Universität zu Köln, Köln, Germany
13
Faculty of Physics, University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria
14
STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, Warrington, UK
15
Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA
16
Department of Physics, Institute for Nuclear Physics, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
17
ELI-NP/IFIN-HH, Bucharest-Măgurele, Romania
18
Institute for Nuclear Physics, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
19
CERN, CH-1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
20
The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kraków, Poland
21
INFN Sezione di Milano, Milano, Italy
22
Oliver Lodge Laboratory, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
23
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano, Milano, Italy
24
Department of Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
25
Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC-Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
26
Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica, Universitat de Valencia, Burjassot, Spain
27
INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Legnaro, Padova, Italy
28
INFN Sezione di Padova, Padova, Italy
29
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università di Padova, Padua, Italy
30
Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France
31
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
32
Department of Physics, Ankara University, Besevler, Ankara, Turkey
a
giorgia.pasqualato.1@gmail.com
Received:
16
May
2023
Accepted:
21
October
2023
Published online:
21
November
2023
The Zirconium (Z = 40) isotopic chain has attracted interest for more than four decades. The abrupt lowering of the energy of the first 
state and the increase in the transition strength B(E2; 
going from 
Zr to 
Zr has been the first example of “quantum phase transition” in nuclear shapes, which has few equivalents in the nuclear chart. Although a multitude of experiments have been performed to measure nuclear properties related to nuclear shapes and collectivity in the region, none of the measured lifetimes were obtained using the Recoil Distance Doppler Shift method in the -coincidence mode where a gate on the direct feeding transition of the state of interest allows a strict control of systematical errors. This work reports the results of lifetime measurements for the first yrast excited states in Zr carried out to extract reduced transition probabilities. The new lifetime values in -coincidence and 
-single mode are compared with the results of former experiments. Recent predictions of the Interacting Boson Model with Configuration Mixing, the Symmetry Conserving Configuration Mixing model based on the Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov approach and the Monte Carlo Shell Model are presented and compared with the experimental data.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
