Three-body correlations in the decay of 10He and 13Li

H. T. Johansson, Y. Aksyutina, T. Aumann, K. Boretzky, M. J G Borge, A. Chatillon, L. V. Chulkov, D. Cortina-Gil, U. Datta Pramanik, H. Emling, C. Forssén, H. O U Fynbo, H. Geissel, G. Ickert, B. Jonson*, R. Kulessa, C. Langer, M. Lantz, T. LeBleis, K. MahataM. Meister, G. Münzenberg, T. Nilsson, G. Nyman, R. Palit, S. Paschalis, W. Prokopowicz, R. Reifarth, A. Richter, K. Riisager, G. Schrieder, N. B. Shulgina, H. Simon, K. Sümmerer, O. Tengblad, H. Weick, M. V. Zhukov

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The very exotic nuclear resonance systems, 10He and 13Li, are produced in proton-knockout reactions from relativistic beams of 11Li and 14Be. The experimentally determined energy and angular correlations between their decay products, He8+n+n and Li11+n+n, are analyzed using an expansion of decay amplitudes in a restricted set of hyperspherical harmonics. By considering only a small number of terms it is possible to extract the expansion coefficients directly from the experimental three-body correlations. This provides a model-independent way of getting information about the decay process, on the structure of the decaying nucleus and on the quantum characteristics of the binary subsystems. The results show that the He8+n+n relative-energy spectrum can be interpreted as consisting of two resonances, an IΠ=0+ ground state and an excited IΠ=2+ state. The Li11+n+n relative-energy spectrum is interpreted as an IΠ=3/2- ground state overlapping with excited states having a structure similar to the 2+ state in 10He but spread over several states due to the coupling to the IΠ=3/2- core. The 13Li data also give evidence for a contribution of a configuration where the two neutrons occupy the d-shell.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)66-88
Number of pages23
JournalNuclear Physics A
Volume847
Issue number1-2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2010

Keywords

  • Comparison with three-body wave function analysis
  • Deduced
  • Measured
  • Nuclear reactions

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