title: Discovery of doubly magic 48Ni
abstract: In an experiment at the SISSI/LISE3 facility of GANIL, we used the projectile fragmentation of a primary 58Ni26+ beam at 74.5 MeV/nucleon with an average current of 3 &mgr;A on a natural nickel target to produce very neutron-deficient isotopes. In a 10-day experiment, 287 42Cr isotopes, 53 45Fe isotopes, 106 49Ni isotopes, and 4 48Ni isotopes were unambiguously identified. The doubly magic nucleus 48Ni, observed for the first time, is the most proton-rich isotope ever identified with an isospin projection T(z) = -4. It is probably the last doubly magic nucleus with "classical" shell closures accessible for present-day facilities. Its observation allows us to deduce a lower limit for the half-life of 48Ni of 0.5 &mgr;s.
authors.affiliation: CEN Bordeaux-Gradignan, Le Haut-Vigneau, F-33175 Gradignan Cedex, France.
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blank
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chartier
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Czajkowski
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Giovinazzo
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Pravikoff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.lastname: de France G
authors.lastname: de Oliveira Santos F
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lewitowicz
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Borcea
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Grzywacz
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Janas
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pfutzner