Breakup reactions of the halo nuclei 11Be and 8B

Elastic scattering and breakup reactions with light proton- and neutron-rich exotic nuclei

A microscopic analysis of the optical potentials (OPs) and cross sections of elastic scattering of 8B on 12C, 58Ni, and 208Pb targets at energies 20 < E < 170 MeV and 12,14Be on 12C at 56 MeV/nucleon is carried out. The real part of the OP is calculated by a folding procedure and the imaginary part is obtained on the base of the high-energy approximation (HEA). The density distributions of 8B evaluated within the variational Monte Carlo (VMC) model and the three-cluster model (3CM) are used to construct the potentials. The 14Be densities obtained in the framework of the the generator coordinate method (GCM) are used to calculate the optical potentials, while for the same purpose both the VMC model and GCM densities of 12Be are used. In the hybrid model developed and explored in our previous works, the only free parameters are the depths of the real and imaginary parts of OP obtained by fitting the experimental data. The use of HEA to estimate the imaginary OP at energies just above the Coulomb barrier is discussed. In addition, cluster model, in which 8B consists of a p-halo and the 7Be core, is applied to calculate the breakup cross sections of 8B nucleus on 9Be, 12C, and 197Au targets, as well as momentum distributions of 7Be fragments. A good agreement of the theoretical results with the available experimental data is obtained. It is concluded that the reaction studies performed in this work may provide supplemental information on the internal spatial structure of the proton- and neutron-halo nuclei.

Production of the PET isotope 11C in hadron therapy via neutron knockout

PURPOSE

Positron emitting isotopes such as ¹¹C and ¹⁰C can be used for vital dose verification in hadron therapy. These isotopes are produced when the high energy ¹²C primary beam particles undergo nuclear reactions within the patient.

METHODS

We discuss a model for calculating cross sections for the production ¹¹C in ¹²C+¹²C collisions, applicable at hadron therapy energies.

RESULTS

Good agreement with the available cross section measurements is found for ¹²C(-1n), though more detailed, systematic measurements would be very valuable.

CONCLUSIONS

Nuclear structure plays a crucial role in the reactions of light nuclei, particularly when those reactions are peripheral and involve only a few nucleons. For such reactions, nuclear structure has a strong influence on the energy and angular distribution of the cross section, and is an important consideration for reliable dose verification using ¹¹C in hadron therapy.

Asymptotic normalization coefficient of 8B from breakup reactions and the S17 astrophysical factor

We show that asymptotic normalization coefficients (ANC) can be extracted from one-nucleon breakup reactions of loosely bound nuclei at 30-300 MeV/nucleon. In particular, the breakup of 8B is described in terms of an extended Glauber model. The 8B ANC extracted from breakup data at several energies and on different targets, C(2)(tot) = 0.450+/-0.039 fm(-1), leads to the astrophysical factor S17(0) = 17.4+/-1.5 eV b for the key reaction for solar neutrino production 7Be(p, gamma)8B. The procedure described provides an indirect method to determine reaction rates of astrophysical interest with beams of loosely bound radioactive nuclei.

One-neutron knockout from individual single-particle states of 11Be

The structure of the halo nucleus 11Be has been studied using the reaction 9Be(11Be,10Be+gamma)X at 60 MeV/nucleon. The ground state structure of 11Be is determined by comparing the experimental cross sections to a calculation combining spectroscopic factors from the shell model with l-dependent single-particle cross sections obtained in an eikonal model. This experiment shows the dominant 1s single-particle character of the 11Be ground state and indicates a small contribution of 0d admixture in the wave function. After correction for the approximately 22% intensity to excited levels, a clean and precise distribution of parallel momentum for knockout from the 1s halo wave function is obtained for the first time.