Elastic scattering and reaction mechanisms of the halo nucleus 11Be around the Coulomb barrier

Collisions induced by (9,10,11)Be on a 64Zn target at the same c.m. energy were studied. For the first time, strong effects of the 11Be halo structure on elastic-scattering and reaction mechanisms at energies near the Coulomb barrier are evidenced experimentally. The elastic-scattering cross section of the 11Be halo nucleus shows unusual behavior in the Coulomb-nuclear interference peak angular region. The extracted total-reaction cross section for the 11Be collision is more than double the ones measured in the collisions induced by (9,10)Be. It is shown that such a strong enhancement of the total-reaction cross section with 11Be is due to transfer and breakup processes.

Clarification of the three-body decay of 12C (12.71 MeV)

Using beta decays of a clean source of 12N produced at the IGISOL facility, we have measured the breakup of the 12C (12.71 MeV) state into three alpha particles with a segmented particle detector setup. The high quality of the data permits solving the question of the breakup mechanism of the 12.71 MeV state, a longstanding problem in few-body nuclear physics. Among existing models, a modified sequential model fits the data best, but systematic deviations indicate that a three-body description is needed.