Mechanisms for spin suppression and orbital enhancement in M1 transitions: Critical assessment

We discuss different nuclear structure properties that may lead to spin suppression in magnetic dipole excitations (as well as in Gamow-Teller transitions). We especially compare the triaxial and the axial asymptotic deformation limits and show that the summed B(M1) strength can be quite different in the two cases. A connection between triaxial deformation and spin suppression is established. It is known, however, that modern Hartree-Fock calculations yield axially symmetric solutions for several nuclei which were previously thought to be triaxial. We show that taking into account the effects of higher shells can lead to an enhanced orbital contribution to M1 excitations without affecting ground-state magnetic moments