Do Halo Nuclei Follow Rutherford Elastic Scattering at Energies Below the Barrier? The Case of $^{11}\mathrm{Li}$

Do Halo Nuclei Follow Rutherford Elastic Scattering at Energies Below the Barrier? The Case of ${}^{11}{Li}$

M. Cubero, J. P. Fernández-García, M. Rodríguez-Gallardo, L. Acosta, M. Alcorta, M. A. G. Alvarez, M. J. G. Borge, L. Buchmann, C. A. Diget, H. Al Falou, B. R. Fulton, H. O. U. Fynbo, D. Galaviz, J. Gómez-Camacho, R. Kanungo, J. A. Lay, M. Madurga, I. Martel, A. M. Moro, I. Mukha, T. Nilsson, A. M. Sánchez-Benítez, A. Shotter, O. Tengblad, and P. Walden

Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 262701 – Published 26 December 2012

Abstract

The first measurement of the elastic scattering of the halo nucleus ${}^{11}{Li}$ and its core ${}^{9}{Li}$ on ${}^{208}{Pb}$ at energies near the Coulomb barrier is presented. The ${}^{11}{Li} + {}^{208}{Pb}$ elastic scattering shows a strong reduction with respect to the Rutherford cross section, even at energies well below the barrier and down to very small scattering angles. This drastic change of the elastic differential cross section observed in ${}^{11}{Li} + {}^{208}{Pb}$ is the consequence of the halo structure of ${}^{11}{Li}$ , as it is not observed in the elastic scattering of its core ${}^{9}{Li}$ at the same energies. Four-body continuum-discretized coupled-channels calculations, based on a three-body model of the ${}^{11}{Li}$ projectile, are found to explain the measured angular distributions and confirm that the observed reduction is mainly due to the strong Coulomb coupling to the dipole states in the low-lying continuum of ${}^{11}{Li}$ . These calculations suggest the presence of a low-lying dipole resonance in ${}^{11}{Li}$ close to the breakup threshold.

Received 7 October 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.262701

Authors & Affiliations

M. Cubero^1,2, J. P. Fernández-García^3,4, M. Rodríguez-Gallardo³, L. Acosta⁵, M. Alcorta¹, M. A. G. Alvarez^3,4, M. J. G. Borge^6,*, L. Buchmann⁷, C. A. Diget⁸, H. Al Falou⁹, B. R. Fulton⁸, H. O. U. Fynbo¹⁰, D. Galaviz¹¹, J. Gómez-Camacho^3,4, R. Kanungo⁹, J. A. Lay³, M. Madurga⁶, I. Martel⁵, A. M. Moro³, I. Mukha⁴, T. Nilsson¹², A. M. Sánchez-Benítez⁵, A. Shotter^7,13, O. Tengblad⁶, and P. Walden⁷

¹Instituto de Estructura de la Materia CSIC, E28006 Madrid, Spain
²CICANUM, Universidad de Costa Rica UCR, Apartado 2060 San José, Costa Rica
³Departamento de FAMN, Universidad de Sevilla, 41080 Seville, Spain
⁴Centro Nacional de Aceleradores, Universidad de Sevilla/Junta de Andalucía/CSIC, 41092 Seville, Spain
⁵Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Huelva, 21071 Huelva, Spain
⁶Instituto de Estructura de la Materia CSIC, E28006 Madrid, Spain
⁷TRIUMF, V6T2A3 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
⁸Department of Physics, University of York, YO 10 5DD Heslington, York, United Kingdom
⁹Department of Astronomy and Physics, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax B3H3C3, Nova Scotia, Canada
¹⁰Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark
¹¹CFNUL, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-003 Lisbon, Portugal
¹²Fundamental Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden
¹³School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

^*mj.borge@csic.es

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Vol. 109, Iss. 26 — 28 December 2012

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Physical Review Letters

Do Halo Nuclei Follow Rutherford Elastic Scattering at Energies Below the Barrier? The Case of Li11

Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 262701 – Published 26 December 2012

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Do Halo Nuclei Follow Rutherford Elastic Scattering at Energies Below the Barrier? The Case of ${}^{11}{Li}$