Second-order electromagnetic transitions of nuclei

Abstract

The excited states of atomic nuclei typically decay via electromagnetic transitions. In this work, we study second-order electromagnetic double-magnetic dipole transitions for different nuclei: 20Ne, 48Ti, 40Ca and 72Ge. We calculate nuclear matrix elements using the nuclear shell model with different valence spaces and nuclear interactions, and we estimate the quality of the results by comparing related calculations with data of first-order electromagnetic transitions and energy spectra. The theoretical results can be used to predict second-order electromagnetic half-lives which could be compared with future experiments.