The $\beta$ decay of $^{34,35}$Mg and the structure of $^{34}$Al

Nuclei in the island of inversion, near the $N=20$ shell closure, exhibit a fascinating behavior where the nuclear ground states show deformed configurations dominated by particle-hole excitations across the neutron shell gap. The $^{31-35}$Mg nuclei are in or at the border of this island displaying intruder ground-state configurations, while the $^{31-35}$Al isotopes are suggested to have mixed ground- state configurations of normal and intruder type and thus serve as a transition from intruder dominated Mg isotopes to the normal ground-state configuration in Si isotopes. An experiment was performed at the TRIUMF-ISAC-I facility with the goal of populating states in $^{33-35}$Al via the beta decay of $^{33-35}$Mg. Mg ions were produced, transported and implanted onto a moving Mylar tape at the center of the GRIFFIN spectrometer. Results obtained from the analysis of the $^{34,35}$Mg decay data from this experiment will be presented. This includes the half-lives of $^{34,35}$Mg and $^{34,35}$Al which clarify current conflicting information in the literature.