• The method of systematic nuclear-structure studies by means of microsecond isomers populated in the fragmentation was discovered and pioneered by Robert Grzywacz and Krzysztof Rykaczewski at GANIL laboratory, see Grzywacz et al., Phys.Lett. B355 (1995) 439. Application of this extremely sensitive technique at GANIL yielded a wealth of first spectroscopic data on many nuclei far from stability, see for example Grzywacz et al., Phys.Rev.Lett. 81 (1998) 766 (island of isomers around Z=28 and N=40), or Daugas et al., Phys.Lett. B476 (2000) 231 (78Zn), or Sawicka et al., Eur.Phys.J. A20 (2003) 109 (76Ni).

• The first application of this method to heavy projectiles (238U) at relativistic energy (1000 MeV/nucleon) was succeded at GSI Darmstadt, see Pfützner et al, Phys.Lett. B444 (1998) 32. One of the discoveries was the first glimpse of the 8+ isomer in 212Pb, identified after collecting only 370 ions (shown in the title's icon). It started a long-term, broad, and very fruitful research programme at GSI. The achieved highlights include:
  
  • Podolyak et al., Phys.Lett. B491 (2000) 225 (190W)
  • Jungclaus et al., Phys.Rev.Lett. 99 (2007) 132501  (130Cd)
  • Górska et al., Phys.Lett. B672 (2009) 313 (131In)
    
  • Nara Singh et al., Phys.Rev.Lett. 107 (2011) 172502 (96Cd)
  • Gottardo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 (2012) 162502  (212-216Pb)

• The metod of isomeric spectroscopy of heavy, relativistic projectile fragments is described in some detail in Pfützner et al., Phys.Rev.C65 (2002) 064604. In this paper a simple model of isomeric population probability is formulated and discussed.