Fragmentation of neutron-rich carbon isotopes on light targets at 27.5 MeV/nucleon
Experimental and theoretical investigation of the fragmentation reaction in Fermi-energy domain is currently of particular importance for not only the nuclear physics but also some interdisciplinary fields. In the present work, neutron-rich $^{14}$C and $^{16}$C ion beams at 27.5 MeV/nucleon were used to bombard carbon and polyethylene (CD$_{2}$)$_{n}$ targets. Energy and angular distributions of the produced fragments were measured. Background events originating from the carbon content in (CD$_{2}$)$_{n}$ target were efficiently excluded using an extended $E-P$ plot method. Experimental results are systematically analyzed by using HIPSE-SIMON dynamic model. The comparison reveals that, for the carbon target, the HIPSE-SIMON calculation overestimates the yields of the beam-velocity component for fragments near the projectile and also the energy phase space for fragments far away from the projectile, suggesting fine tuning of the overall interaction profile adopted in the model. In contrast, for reactions with the deuteron target, the model calculation can reasonably reproduce the experimental data. The implication of the fragmentation mechanism to the validity of the invariant mass method, as frequently used to reconstruct the clustering resonant structures in light nuclei, is also discussed.