Anomalous transition strength in the proton-unbound nucleus (109)(53)I56

A lifetime measurement has been made for the first excited 11/2(+) state in the proton-unbound nucleus (109)(53)I56 using the recoil-distance Doppler-shift method in conjunction with recoil-proton tagging. The experimental reduced transition probability is considerably smaller than the prediction of theoretical shell-model calculations using the CD-Bonn nucleon-nucleon potential. The discrepancy between the theoretical and experimental reduced transition strengths in this work most likely arises from the inability of the current shell-model calculations to accurately account for the behavior of the unbound nuclear states.