Dipole excitations in ¹⁰⁸Cd

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.