Chronicle of the discovery of the back-bending phenomenon in atomic nuclei: a personal recollection 50 years on

Abstract

A chronicle describing the historical context and the development of ideas and experiments leading to the discovery of the back-bending phenomenon in rapidly rotating atomic nuclei some 50 years ago is presented. The moment of inertia of some atomic nuclei increases anomalously at a certain rotational frequency, revealing important clues to our understanding of nuclear structure. I highlight the decisive interactions and contacts between experimentalists and theorists, which created the right environment, allowing for the revelation of an undetected phenomenon in Nature. Finally, I reflect on the key points allowing for the discovery and particularly point to the importance of systematic surveys, which in this case investigated the energy levels in heavy nuclei of a large sample of elements, as well as to the accuracy of the measurements of the ground state levels made at the time.

Systematic Projected Shell Model Study of Even-Even Dysprosium Isotopes

“…Also, more experimental data are available in this paper for comparison. The moment of inertia J is defined as ( and rotation speed as [21].…”

An Alternative Computation of the Entropy of 1D Signals Based on Geometric Properties

“…Then, when decay from a high energy level occurs, a radiation cascade with discrete values is usually generated. In the following paragraphs, an application to nuclear decay originated in the rotation of the nucleus, called Back Bending [22], is described. First, the simple case of the rotational states of a deformed nucleus will be analyzed.…”