Measurement of the charge radius of Ni-68 published in PRL

For the first time, a short-lived Ni isotope was studied by laser spectroscopy at ISOLDE. We have determined the charge radius of Ni-68 and the result is compared to calculations using chiral effective field theory.
Ni-68 is now the only short-lived nucleus for which the charge radius and the nuclear dipole polarizability are determined, which allows to benchmark the correlations between these observables that are obtained in nuclear theory. We show that the inclusion of triples excitations is essential to bring experiment and theory into agreement.

Get the publication here (open access).