Coupled reaction channel study of the 12C(alpha,8Be) reaction, and the 8Be+8Be optical potential

TL;DR

This study investigates the 8Be+8Be optical potential using coupled reaction channel methods applied to the 12C(alpha,8Be) reaction, providing insights into alpha clustering and transfer mechanisms in nuclear reactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to determine the complex 8Be+8Be optical potential through CRC analysis without adjustable parameters, based on advanced CDCC calculations.

Findings

Successful CRC description of alpha transfer data

Effective use of CDCC methods for scattering calculations

Insights into alpha cluster configurations in 12C

Abstract

Given the established 2 alpha structure of 8Be, a realistic model of 4 interacting alpha clusters must be used to obtain a 8Be+8Be interaction potential. Such a four-body problem poses a challenge for the determination of the 8Be+8Be optical potential (OP) that is still unknown due to the lack of the elastic 8Be+8Be scattering data. The main goal of the present study is to probe the complex 8Be+8Be optical potential in the coupled reaction channel (CRC) study of the alpha transfer 12C(alpha,8Be) reaction measured at 65 MeV, and to obtain the spectroscopic information on the alpha+8Be cluster configuration of 12C. The 3- and 4-body Continuum-Discretized Coupled Channel (CDCC) methods are used to calculate the elastic alpha+8Be and 8Be+8Be scattering at the energy around 16 MeV/nucleon, with the breakup effect taken into account explicitly. Using the CDCC-based OP and alpha spectroscopic factors given by the cluster model calculation, a good CRC description of the alpha transfer data without any adjustment of the (complex) potential strength.