Low-spin states in Ge 80 populated in the β decay of the Ga 80 3- isomer
12 pags., 8 figs., 1 tab. ; The structure of Ge80 has been investigated at the ISOLDE facility at CERN. A previous study reported for the first time a low-lying 02+ intruder state at 639 keV, based on the coincidence with a previously unobserved 1764-keV γ ray, and suggested it as evidence for shape coexistence in Ge80. We used the β decay from the 3- 22.4-keV state in Ga80 to enhance the population of low-spin states in Ge80, including any excited 0+ level, and γγ coincidences to investigate it. We observed a 1764-keV γ ray in coincidence with strong transitions in Ge80, thus not feeding the proposed 639-keV 02+. No connecting transitions from previously known levels to the 639-keV and 2403-keV 23+ states could be established either. Shell-model calculations for Ge isotopes and N=48 isotones were performed. They succeed to explain most of the experimental levels, but fail to reproduce the presence of a 02+ state below ≈1200 keV in Ge80. Our experimental findings and shell-model calculations are difficult to reconcile with a very low-lying 02+ state in Ge80. ; This work was supported by Spanish national projects FPA2015-65035-P, RTI2018-098868-B-I00, and PID2019- 104390GB-I00, by Grupo de Física Nuclear (GFN) at Universidad Complutense (Spain), by the U.S. DoE Grant No. DE-FG02-94ER40834, and by the German BMBF Grant 05P19PKFNA. The support by the European Union Seventh Framework through ENSAR (Contract No. 262010) and by the ISOLDE Collaboration and technical teams is acknowledged. ; Peer reviewed