Spectroscopy of 17C and (sd )3 structures in heavy carbon isotopes

The structure of ¹⁷C has been investigated using the three-neutron transfer reaction (¹²C,⁹C) on a ¹⁴C target at 231MeV incident energy, the reaction Q-value is Q ₀ = - 46.930MeV. Eleven new states up to 16.3MeV excitation energy were identified. The same reaction has also been used on a ¹²C target ( Q ₀ = - 38.787MeV), and excited states in ¹⁵C up to 19MeV were observed. In ¹⁷C the three transferred neutrons populate (sd )³ configurations on the ¹⁴C core. The comparison of levels populated by the (¹²C,⁹C) reaction in ¹⁷C, ¹⁶C and ¹⁵C reveals a strong similarity of their properties. This concerns especially nine states in each of the three carbon isotopes, which show practically the same excitation energies except a constant mean shift of +5.82MeV for ¹⁶C and +6.65MeV for ¹⁵C with respect to ¹⁷C. The triples of states from the three isotopes, which correspond to each other, have also similar widths and cross-section ratios. It is concluded that the same (sd )³ structures are populated in the three carbon isotopes. The observed levels of ¹⁷C are also compared to the levels of ¹⁹O with known assignments and to shell model calculations, and their decay properties are discussed.