Measurement of two-halo neutron transfer reaction p($^{11}$Li,$^{9}$Li)t at 3$A$ MeV

TL;DR

This study measures the two-halo neutron transfer reaction p(11Li,9Li)t at 3A MeV, providing new experimental data and insights into neutron correlations in halo nuclei using advanced detection and modeling techniques.

Contribution

First measurement of the p(11Li,9Li)t reaction at 3A MeV, revealing the importance of neutron correlations in halo nuclei through multistep transfer calculations.

Findings

Wave functions with strong neutron correlations best reproduce the data.

Differential cross sections obtained for ground and excited states.

Experimental data supports models with halo neutron correlations.

Abstract

The p(\nuc{11}{Li},\nuc{9}{Li})t reaction has been studied for the first time at an incident energy of 3$A$ MeV delivered by the new ISAC-2 facility at TRIUMF. An active target detector MAYA, build at GANIL, was used for the measurement. The differential cross sectionshave been determined for transitions to the \nuc{9}{Li} ground andthe first excited states in a wide range of scattering angles. Multistep transfer calculations using different \nuc{11}{Li} model wave functions, shows that wave functions with strong correlations between the halo neutrons are the most successful in reproducing the observation.