First spectroscopic study of $^{51}$Ar by the (p,2p) reaction

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The nuclear structure of 51Ar, an uncharted territory so far, was studied by the (p,2p) reaction using γ-ray spectroscopy for the bound states and the invariant mass method for the unbound states. Two peaks were detected in the γ-ray spectrum and six peaks were observed in the 50Ar+n relative energy spectrum. Comparing the results to our shell-model calculations, two bound and six unbound states were established. Three of the unbound states could only be placed tentatively due to the low number of counts in the relative energy spectrum of events associated with the decay through the first excited state of 50Ar. The low cross sections populating the two bound states of 51Ar could be interpreted as a clear signature for the presence of significant subshell closures at neutron numbers 32 and 34 in argon isotopes. It was also revealed that due to the two valence holes, unbound collective states coexist with individual-particle states in 51Ar.
We are very grateful to the RIKEN Nishina Center accelerator staff for providing the stable beam and to the BigRIPS team for the smooth operation of the secondary beams. The development of the MINOS device has been supported by the European Research Council through the ERC Grant No. MINOS-258567. F. B. was supported by the RIKEN Special Postdoctoral Researcher Program. K. O. acknowledges the support by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research JP16K05352. Y. U. acknowledges the support by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research 20K03981. Y. L. S. acknowledges the support of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015-705023) from the European Union and the support from the Helmholtz International Center for FAIR. H. N. L. acknowledges the support from the Enhanced Eurotalents program (PCOFUND-GA-2013-600382) co-funded by CEA and the European Union. T. A., C. L., D. R., H. T., V. W., L. Z., H. N. L., V. W. and A. O. acknowledge the support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) Project No. 279384907-SFB 1245. R. B. G. acknowledges the support from the DFG under Grant No. BL 1513/1-1. Y. L. S. and A. O. acknowledge the support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. B. D. L. and L. X. C. acknowledge the support from the Vietnam Ministry of Science and Technology under Grant No. ĐTCB.01/21/VKHKTHN. I. G. has been supported by HIC for FAIR and HRZZ under project No. 1257 and 7194. K. I. H., D. K. and S. Y. P. acknowledge the support from the NRF grant funded by the Korea government (No. 2017R1A2B2012382 and 2019M7A1A1033186). F. B. acknowledge the support from the RIKEN Special Postdoctoral Researcher Program. D. S. and Z. E. were supported by projects No. GINOP-2.3.3-15-2016-00034 and No. K128947. V. V. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under Contract No. FPA2017-84756-C4-2-P. V. W. and P. K. acknowledge the support from BMBF grants 05P15RDFN1 and 05P19RDFN1. P. K. acknowledges support from HGS-HIRe. This work was also supported by NKFIH (114454).