Spectroscopic study of neutron shell closures via nucleon transfer in the near-dripline nucleus O23

Neutron single particle energies have been measured in O23 using the O22(d,p)O*23→O22+n process. The energies of the resonant states have been deduced to be 4.00(2) MeV and 5.30(4) MeV. The first excited state can be assigned to the νd3/2 single particle state from a comparison with shell model calculations. The measured 4.0 MeV energy difference between the νs1/2 and νd3/2 states gives the size of the N=16 shell gap which is in agreement with the recent USD05 ("universal" sd from 2005) shell model calculation, and is large enough to explain the unbound nature of the oxygen isotopes heavier than A=24. The resonance detected at 5.3 MeV can be assigned to a state out of the sd shell model space. Its energy corresponds to a ∼1.3MeV sized N=20 shell gap, therefore, the N=20 shell closure disappears at Z=8 in agreement with Monte Carlo shell model calculations using SDPF-M interaction.