arXiv · 2102.03699
Quasi-free Neutron Knockout Reaction Reveals a Small $s$-orbital Component in the Borromean Nucleus $^{17}$B
Abstract
A kinematically complete quasi-free $(p,pn)$ experiment in inverse kinematics was performed to study the structure of the Borromean nucleus $^{17}$B, which had long been considered to have neutron halo. By analyzing the momentum distributions and exclusive cross sections, we obtained the spectroscopic factors for $1s_{1/2}$ and $0d_{5/2}$ orbitals, and a surprisingly small percentage of 9(2)$\%$ was determined for $1s_{1/2}$. Our finding of such a small $1s_{1/2}$ component and the halo features reported in prior experiments can be explained by the deformed relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov theory in continuum, revealing a definite but not dominant neutron halo in $^{17}$B. The present work gives the smallest $s$- or $p$-orbital component among known nuclei exhibiting halo features, and implies that the dominant occupation of $s$ or $p$ orbitals is not a prerequisite for the occurrence of neutron halo.
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Z. H. Yang, Y. Kubota, A. Corsi, K. Yoshida, X. -X. Sun, J. G. Li, M. Kimura, N. Michel, K. Ogata, C. X. Yuan, Q. Yuan, G. Authelet, H. Baba, C. Caesar, D. Calvet, A. Delbart, M. Dozono, J. Feng, F. Flavigny, J. -M. Gheller, J. Gibelin, A. Giganon, A. Gillibert, K. Hasegawa, T. Isobe, Y. Kanaya, S. Kawakami, D. Kim, Y. Kiyokawa, M. Kobayashi, N. Kobayashi, T. Kobayashi, Y. Kondo, Z. Korkulu, S. Koyama, V. Lapoux, Y. Maeda, F. M. Marqes, T. Motobayashi, T. Miyazaki, T. Nakamura, N. Nakatsuka, Y. Nishio, A. Obertelli, y A. Ohkura, N. A. Orr, S. Ota, H. Otsu, T. Ozaki, V. Panin, S. Paschalis, E. C. Pollacco, S. Reichert, J. -Y. Rousse, A. T. Saito, S. Sakaguchi, M. Sako, C. Santamaria, 4 M. Sasano, H. Sato, M. Shikata, Y. Shimizu, Y. Shindo, L. Stuhl, T. Sumikama, Y. L. Sun, M. Tabata, Y. Togano, J. Tsubota, F. R. Xu, J. Yasuda, K. Yoneda, J. Zenihiro, S. -G. Zhou, W. Zuo, T. Uesaka. 2021-02-07. Quasi-free Neutron Knockout Reaction Reveals a Small $s$-orbital Component in the Borromean Nucleus $^{17}$B. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.126.082501
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