Coulomb breakup of the neutron-rich isotopes 15C and 17C

Coulomb breakup of unstable neutron-rich carbon isotopes 15,17 C has been studied at energies around ∼500–600 MeV/nucleon. Non-resonant low-lying dipole strength is observed in these isotopes which can be explained by a direct breakup mechanism. In addition to the decay neutron from excited projectile, γ-rays emitted from excited fragments after Coulomb breakup are measured in coincidence, giving access to quantitative spectroscopic information. The spectroscopic factor deduced for a valence neutron occupying the s1/2 level in the 15C ground state is consistent with that obtained earlier from (d,p) transfer reactions. The analysis for Coulomb breakup of 17C shows that most of the cross section yields the 16C core in excited states. The predominant ground-state configuration of 17C is found to be 16 C (2 + )⊗ν s,d .