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In this work we investigate the two-neutron decay of 13Li and of the excited states of 11Li populated via one-proton removal from 14Be and 12Be, respectively. A phenomenological model is used to describe the decay of 11Li and 13Li. While the first one displays important sequential components, the second one appears dominated by the direct two-neutron decay. A microscopic three-body model is used to extract information on the spatial configuration of the emitted neutrons before the decay and shows that the average distance between the neutrons increases going from 11Li to 13Li.

The discrepancy between experimental data and theoretical calculations in one-nucleon removal reactions at intermediate energies (quantified by the so-called “quenching factors”) and its dependence on the isospin asymmetry of the nuclei has been an open problem in nuclear physics for the last fifteen years. In this work, we propose an explanation for this long-standing problem, which relies on the inclusion of the process of core destruction due to its interaction with the removed nucleon. To include this effect, we extend the commonly used eikonal formalism via an effective nucleon density, and apply it to a series of nucleon knockout reactions. The effect of core destruction is found to depend strongly on the binding energy of the removed nucleon, leading to a significant reduction of the cross section for deeply bound nucleons, which reduces the isospin dependence of the “quenching factors”, making them more consistent with the trends found in transfer and (p,pN) reactions.

In this work, we present an extension of the Continuum-Discretized Coupled-Channel formalism to include the effects of absorption and excitation of the core through its interaction with the removed particle in the description of nuclear breakup reactions. This extension is performed via the inclusion of a complex energy-dependent interaction between core and removed particle and the use of a binormal basis to ensure orthogonality. The formalism is applied to neutron breakup reactions with a 12C target at 70 MeV per nucleon for the loosely-bound 11Be nucleus and the more deeply-bound 41Ca nucleus, finding a moderate reduction in the cross section for the weakly-bound case and a strong reduction for the more deeply-bound case. Possible implications for the interpretation of intermediate-energy knockout reactions are discussed.

A novel method to extract the B(E1) strength of a weakly bound nucleus from experimental Coulomb dissociation data is proposed. The method makes use of continuum discretized coupled channels (CDCC) calculations, in which both nuclear and Coulomb forces are taken into account to all orders. This is a crucial advantage with respect to the standard procedure based on the Equivalent Photon Method (EPM) which does not properly take into account nuclear distortion, higher order coupling effects, or Coulomb-nuclear interference terms. The systematic and statistical uncertainties of this procedure are evaluated. The procedure is applied to the 11Be nucleus using two sets of available experimental data at different energies, for which seemingly incompatible B(E1) have been reported using the EPM. We show that the present procedure gives consistent B(E1) strengths, thus solving the aforementioned long-standing discrepancy between the two measurements.

Abstract: The reaction has been investigated at 2.36 MeV/u at the REX-ISOLDE facility. In this Letter we focus on the channel which potentially holds spectroscopic information on the unbound nucleus 10Li. The experimental excitation energy spectrum and angular distribution are compared with CCBA calculations. These calculations clearly support the existence of a low-lying (s) virtual state, with a (negative) scattering length of the order and a resonance with an energy of and a width of . [Copyright &y& Elsevier]