Mechanisms of direct reactions with halo nuclei

TL;DR

This paper reviews reaction models used to analyze halo nuclei, introduces a ratio of angular distributions to isolate nuclear structure effects, and compares the models' effectiveness in interpreting experimental data.

Contribution

It presents a comparative review of reaction models for halo nuclei and introduces a novel ratio observable to better extract nuclear structure information.

Findings

Reaction models vary in their sensitivity to nuclear structure.

The angular distribution ratio reduces reaction mechanism dependence.

The method enhances understanding of halo nuclei properties.

Abstract

Halo nuclei are exotic nuclei which exhibit a strongly clusterised structure: they can be seen as one or two valence nucleons loosely bound to a core. Being observed at the ridge of the valley of stability, halo nuclei are studied mostly through reactions. In this contribution the reaction models most commonly used to analyse experimental data are reviewed and compared to one another. A reaction observable built on the ratio of two angular distributions is then presented. This ratio enables removing most of the sensitivity to the reaction mechanism, which emphasises the effects of nuclear structure on the reaction.