First Measurement of the g Factor in the Chiral Band: The Case of the Cs 128 Isomeric State

The g factor of the 56 ns half-life isomeric state in $^{128}$Cs has been measured using the time-differential perturbed angular distribution method. This state is the bandhead of the positive-parity chiral rotational band, which emerges when an unpaired proton, an unpaired neutron hole, and an even-even core are coupled such that their angular momentum vectors are aplanar (chiral configuration). g-factor measurements can give important information on the relative orientation of the three angular momentum vectors. The measured g factor g=+0.59(1) shows that there is an important contribution of the core rotation in the total angular momentum of the isomeric state. Moreover, a quantitative theoretical analysis supports the conclusion that the three angular momentum vectors lie almost in one plane, which suggests that the chiral configuration in $^{128}$Cs demonstrated in previous works by characteristic patterns of electromagnetic transitions appears only above some value of the total nuclear spin.