The sensitivity of elastic breakup to the interior of the projectile wave function is analyzed. Breakup calculations of loosely bound nuclei (${}^8\mathrm{B}$ and ${}^{11}\mathrm{Be}$) are performed with two different descriptions of the projectile. The descriptions differ strongly in the interior of the wave function, but exhibit identical asymptotic properties, namely the same asymptotic normalisation coefficient, and phase shifts. Breakup calculations are performed at intermediate energies (40–70 MeV/nucleon) on lead and carbon targets as well as at low energy (26 MeV) on a nickel target. No dependence on the projectile description is observed. This result confirms that breakup reactions are peripheral in the sense that they probe only the external part of the wave function. These measurements are thus not directly sensitive to the total normalization of the wave function, i.e., spectroscopic factor.

• Received 30 May 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.75.054609