Direct observation of the glue pairing the halo of the nucleus 11Li

TL;DR

This paper presents direct experimental evidence of phonon-mediated pairing in the halo nucleus 11Li, achieved through a combined nuclear structure and reaction mechanism analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a unified approach to nuclear structure and reaction mechanisms, providing the first direct evidence of phonon-mediated pairing in a halo nucleus.

Findings

Evidence of phonon-mediated pairing in 11Li

Successful unified description of nuclear structure and reactions

First direct observation of this pairing mechanism in nuclear physics

Abstract

With the help of a unified description of the nuclear structure and of the direct reaction mechanism we show that a recent 1H(11Li,9Li)3H experiment provides, for the first time in nuclear physics, direct evidence of phonon mediated pairing.