Multinucleon transfer as a gateway to Z>50, N<82 nuclei

Multinucleon-transfer reactions (MNT) provide access to hard-to-reach nuclei in the vicinity of the Z=50 and N=82 shell closures. Nuclei in this region serve as a benchmark for nuclear shell-model calculations based on modern effective interactions. Excited reaction products were measured after MNT in ¹³⁶Xe+²³⁸U at 1 GeV and ¹³⁶Xe+²⁰⁸Pb at 930 MeV with the γ-ray tracking array AGATA coupled to the mass spectrometer PRISMA at LNL (INFN, Italy) as well as in the ¹³⁶Xe+¹⁹⁸Pt MNT reaction employing GAMMASPHERE in combination with the gas-detector array CHICO. Furthermore, Xe and Ba isotopes were populated in fusion-evaporation reactions using the HORUS γ-ray array at the University of Cologne. The high-spin level schemes of ¹³²Xe, ¹³³Xe, ¹³⁴Xe, ¹³⁵Xe and ¹³⁷Ba are considerably extended to higher energies. The 2058-keV (19/2^-) state in ¹³⁵Xe is identified as an 9.0(9)-ns isomer, closing a gap in the systematics along the N=81 isotones. Latest shell-model calculations reproduce the experimental findings. The experimentally-deduced reduced transition probabilities of the isomeric states are compared to shell-model predictions.