Staircase bands in ^105,107,109Ag: fingerprint of interplay between shears mechanism and collective rotation

Shears mechanism in weakly deformed nuclei has been firmly established by numerous experimental observations since its inception by S. Fruaendorf in early nineties. On the contrary, the scope of Shears mode of excitation in moderately deformed nuclei is a less explored territory. The Shears mechanism is primarily identified in bands having strong M1 transitions with increasing energies as well as falling B(M1) rates as a function of angular momentum. On the other hand, the presence of M1 energy staggering in odd and odd-odd nuclei indicates that the signature is a good quantum number which corresponds to collective rotation. It is interesting to note that nuclei near Z=50 shell closure are moderately deformed as well as Shears structure develop at higher excitation with quasi-particles alignment. To be specific, the moderately deformed Ag nuclei are good candidates for such study as the high spin states are predominantly generated by the valance neutrons in low-Ω orbitals of h_11/2 and the valance protons in high-Ω orbitals of g_9/2 which forms a Shears structure