Shell Gap Reduction In Exotic N = 17 Nuclei

27Ne has been investigated through the one neutron transfer reaction 26Ne(d,p)27Ne in inverse kinematics at 9.7 MeV/nucleon. The results support the existence of a low lying negative parity state in 27Ne which is a signature of a reduced sd‐fp shell gap in the N=16 neutron rich region, at variance with stable nuclei.