Decay and Fission Hindrance of Two- and Four-Quasiparticle K Isomers in 254Rf

International audience; Two isomers decaying by electromagnetic transitions with half-lives of 4.7(1.1) and 247(73) mu s have been discovered in the heavy (254)Rf nucleus. The observation of the shorter-lived isomer was made possible by a novel application of a digital data acquisition system. The isomers were interpreted as the K-pi = 8(-), nu(2)(7/2(+)[624]; 9/2(-)[734]) two-quasineutron and the K-pi = 16(+), 8(-)nu(2)(7/2(+)[624]; 9/2(-)[734] circle times 8(-)pi(2) (7/2(-)[514]; 9/2(+)[624]) four-quasiparticle configurations, respectively. Surprisingly, the lifetime of the two-quasiparticle isomer is more than 4 orders of magnitude shorter than what has been observed for analogous isomer…