Identification of isomers- A tricky business

Ana Bacerril just gave an informative talk on the latest experimental program at NSCL-MSU aimed at pinning down the structure of isotopes in the 100Sn region. She gave a didactic introduction on nuclear isomerism and I finally understood the three mechanisms underlying this phenomenon (shape, spin-gap and K-isomers). The main highlights were the measurements of the half life of the beta decay of 96Cd, hints on isomer of 98In and new gamma lines for 96Ag. The latter result was compared against shell model calculations performed by B. A. Brown.