Production of spin-aligned unstable nuclei in projectile fragmentation at intermediate energies

Spin alignment of 14B products in projectile fragmentation reaction induced by 18O beam at E/A = 60 MeV/u has been measured through observation of anisotropy in β-delayed γ ray emission. The alignment A is small in the momentum region corresponding to the peak in the yield, whereas it takes a large negative value for the high-momentum tail. The result is discussed in terms of a simple model of projectile fragmentation. The relevance of the present result to other applications is also mentioned.