A positive-parity nuclear rotational band in an even-even nucleus has and excitation energies
The four nonzero levels give . These approximately constant coefficients, together with the even-spin positive-parity sequence, support a rotational interpretation. The roughly eight-percent decline means a constant-inertia rigid rotor is only an approximation: the effective moment of inertia increases along the sequence.
Using the lowest excited level gives
Using the highest level instead gives , showing the scale of the departure from a constant inertia. This is a comparison of nuclear rotational inertia relative to a rigid sphere, not evidence for an exactly spherical rotating intrinsic state.
For a conventional size estimate, explicitly take a uniform sharp radius with and mass . These are standard scale approximations, not additional measured properties of this isotope supplied by the paper. They give and
Thus the fitted rotational inertia is substantially smaller than the rigid-body scale. Nuclear pairing provides a physical reason collective nuclear inertia need not equal the classical rigid-body value. The comparison's numerical radius dependence is explicit; it is not an independently determined radius.