Shape staggering of midshell mercury isotopes from in-source laser spectroscopy compared with density-functional-theory and Monte Carlo shell-model calculations

The longer Physical Review C companion to the Nature Physics mercury paper: charge radii, magnetic moments, and quadrupole moments of ¹⁷⁷⁻¹⁸⁵Hg compared with density-functional theory and Monte Carlo shell model.

In-source laser resonance-ionization spectroscopy at ISOLDE, with α-decay tagging or MR-ToF gating to identify each isotope, including first isotope shifts and hyperfine structures of ¹⁷⁷⁻¹⁸⁰Hg.

The paper assigns ¹⁷⁷,¹⁷⁹Hg spin 7/2 and shows that DFT can get the staggering only qualitatively, while Monte Carlo shell model reproduces radii and moments and names the occupancy change in πh_{9/2} and νi_{13/2}.