Triple charged-particle decays of resonances illustrated by 12C-states

TL;DR

This paper combines hyperspherical adiabatic expansion with complex scaling to accurately compute energy distributions of particles from three-body decays of low-lying $^{12}$C resonances, revealing decay mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a method that accurately captures large-distance continuum properties of wavefunctions for three-body decays in $^{12}$C resonances.

Findings

Energy distributions for $1^-$, $2^-$, and $4^-$ states computed.

Sequential decay dominates $1^-$ resonance, direct decays for $2^-$ and $4^-$.

Large distance properties are crucial for understanding decay mechanisms.

Abstract

The hyperspherical adiabatic expansion is combined with complex scaling and used to calculate the energy distributions of the particles arising from three-body decaying low-lying $^{12}$C resonances. The large distance continuum properties of the wavefunctions are crucial and must be accurately calculated. The substantial changes from small to large distances determine the decay mechanisms. We illustrate by computing the energy distributions from decays of the $1^{-}$, $2^-$ and $4^{-}$-resonances in $^{12}$C. These states are dominated by sequential ($1^-$), through the $^{8}$Be ground state, and direct ($2^-$, $4^-$) decays.