Photonuclear reaction as a probe for $\alpha$-clustering nuclei in the quasi-deuteron region

TL;DR

This study uses an extended quantum molecular dynamics model to investigate photonuclear reactions in the quasi-deuteron region, revealing that reaction observables can distinguish different $ ext{α}$-clustered configurations in nuclei.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of the EQMD model to probe $ ext{α}$-clustering in nuclei via photonuclear reactions in the quasi-deuteron regime.

Findings

Observable differences among configurations indicate sensitivity to $ ext{α}$-clustering.

Spatial-momentum correlations of neutron-proton pairs are key to distinguishing configurations.

Photonuclear reactions can serve as probes for nuclear clustering structures.

Abstract

Photon-nuclear reaction in a transport model frame, namely an Extended Quantum Molecular Dynamics (EQMD) model, has been realised at the photon energy of 70-140 MeV in the quasi-deuteron (QD) regime. For an important application, we pay a special focus on photonuclear reactions of $^{12}$C($\gamma$,np)$^{10}$B where $^{12}$C is considered as different configurations including $\alpha$-clustering. Obvious differences for some observables have been observed among different configurations, which can be attributed to spatial-momentum correlation of a neutron-proton pair inside nucleus, and therefore it gives us a sensitive probe to distinguish the different configurations including $\alpha$ clustering with the help of the photonuclear reaction mechanism.