Dipole excitations in Cd-108

A high-resolution nuclear resonance fluorescence experiment with bremsstrahlung of continuous energy has been performed on 108Cd, the rarest of the stable Cd isotopes. Accurate lifetimes of dipole excitations in the energy range of 2.6–3.9 MeV have been deduced. A magnetic dipole excitation at 3454 keV shows a decay pattern meeting the expectations for the 1+ms state in a nucleus located on the transitional path between vibrational U(5) and γ-soft O(6) dynamical symmetry in the framework of the interacting boson model 2. We extended the systematics of quadrupole-octupole coupled electric dipole excitations 1− in the chain of even-mass Cd isotopes at its neutron deficient end.