  We have studied the low lying magnetic spectra of 12C, 16O, 40Ca, 48Ca and
208Pb nuclei within the Random Phase Approximation (RPA) theory, finding that
the description of low-lying magnetic states of doubly-closed-shell nuclei
imposes severe constraints on the spin and tensor terms of the nucleon-nucleon
effective interaction. We have first made an investigation by using four
phenomenological effective interactions and we have obtained good agreement
with the experimental magnetic spectra, and, to a lesser extent, with the
electron scattering responses. Then we have made self-consistent RPA
calculations to test the validity of the finite-range D1 Gogny interaction. For
all the nuclei under study we have found that this interaction inverts the
energies of all the magnetic states forming isospin doublets.
