Shape coexistence in Hg 178

Lifetime measurements of excited states in Hg178 have been performed using the Rh103(Kr78,p2n) reaction at a beam energy of 354 MeV. The recoil-decay tagging (RDT) technique was applied to select the Hg178 nuclei and associate the prompt γ rays with the correlated characteristic ground-state α decay. Lifetimes of the four lowest yrast states of Hg178 have been determined using the recoil distance Doppler-shift (RDDS) method. The experimental data are compared to theoretical predictions with focus on shape coexistence. The results confirm the shift of the deformed prolate structures to higher lying states but also indicate their increasing deformation with decreasing neutron number.