Fig. 1: Dominant decay paths for ⁷⁰Fe and ⁷⁰Co.

The most prominent transitions observed in the decay chain under study in the present work, which pass through the low-spin isomer of ⁷⁰Co, are shown as blue arrows. The green arrow shows the dominant transition from the high-spin isomeric state, observed in Spyrou et al.²⁸. The inset shows the configurations of the two relevant J^π = 1⁺ states in ⁷⁰Co. The label r represents the group of orbitals (0f_5/2, 1p_3/2, 1p_1/2). Open circles represent hole states within the orbitals; x’s represent states occupied by a particle excited across a shell gap. Symbols placed between orbitals indicate that configurations involving hole states in either orbital are possible. States interpreted as having a weakly deformed (WD) character are labeled with a white spherical shape, while states interpreted as having a strongly deformed (SD) character are labeled with a purple prolate shape (further details in text). All values are taken from the A=70 Nuclear Data Sheets²⁷, and the J^π value of the long-lived β-decaying state in ⁷⁰Co has been reassigned to 1⁺ in accordance with Morales et al.¹⁷ and the Discussion within the Results section.