Experimental evidence of the $^6$He level at $E^*$ = 18.3 MeV by the $^4$He+$^3$H three-body reaction

TL;DR

This study provides experimental evidence for an excited state of helium-6 at 18.3 MeV, using a three-body reaction, and compares the results with previous findings, also identifying new width values for other helium-6 states.

Contribution

First experimental identification of the helium-6 excited state at 18.3 MeV via the $^4$He+$^3$H reaction, with detailed measurements of its energy and width.

Findings

Confirmed the $^6$He$^*$ level at 18.3 MeV with a width of 1.1 MeV.

Measured new width values for other $^6$He levels at 14.0 and 16.1 MeV.

Compared results with previous studies and discussed resonance structures.

Abstract

Measurements of the t-t and p-t coincidence events in the $^3$H ($\alpha$, ttp) reaction have been obtained at $E_\alpha$ incident energy of 67.2 MeV. Various appropriate angular configurations of detectors were chosen in order to observe the population of the $^6$He$^*$ state at around 18 MeV. Its contribution appears at the $E_{\rm tt}$ relative energy of 6.0 MeV by the analysis of bidimensional spectra. We found the formation of the $^6$He excited state at $E^* = 18.3 \pm 0.2$ MeV (with a $\Gamma$ width of 1.1 $\pm$ 0.3 MeV) by the decay into the t+t binary channel, since the threshold energy of the t+t channel is 12.31 MeV. In each analyzed bidimensional energy spectrum of ($E_{\rm t}$, $E_{\rm t}$) and ($E_{\rm p}$, $E_{\rm t}$) coincidence events resonance structures are present due to the formation of both $^6$He$^*$ and $^4$He$^*$ excited states. Our results on the $E^*$ and $\Gamma$ values regarding the $^6$He$^*$ level of about 18 MeV are compared with the results obtained by other reactions. Moreover, we also found new $\Gamma$ width values of 0.7 $\pm$ 0.3 and 0.8 $\pm$ 0.4 MeV for the 14.0 $\pm$ 0.4 and 16.1 $\pm$ 0.4 MeV $^6$He levels, respectively.