First observation of the hyper superheavy hydrogen 6ΛH

Abstract

Three candidate events of the neutron-rich hypernucleus 6ΛH were uniquely identified in the FINUDA experiment at DAΦNE, Frascati, by observing π+ mesons from the (K-stop,π+) production reaction on 6Li targets, in coincidence with π-mesons from 6ΛH \rightarrow 6He+π- weak decay. Details of the experiment and the analysis of its data are reported, leading to an estimate of (2.9\pm2.0)\cdot10-6/K- stop for the 6ΛH production rate times the two-body π- weak decay branching ratio. The 6ΛH binding energy with respect to 5H + Λ was determined jointly from production and decay to be BΛ = (4.0 \pm 1.1) MeV, assuming that 5H is unbound with respect to 3H + 2n by 1.7 MeV. The binding energy determined from production is higher, in each one of the three events, than that determined from decay, with a difference of (0.98 \pm 0.74) MeV here assigned to the 0+g.s. \rightarrow 1+ excitation. The consequences of this assignment to Λ hypernuclear dynamics are briefly discussed.