Experimental evidence of (2)He decay from (18)Ne excited states.
Two-proton decay from (18)Ne excited states has been studied by complete kinematical reconstruction of the decay products. The (18)Ne nucleus has been produced as a radioactive beam by (20)Ne primary projectile fragmentation at 45 AMeV incident energy on a Be target. The (18)Ne at 33 AMeV incident energy has been excited via Coulomb excitation on a (nat)Pb target. The obtained results unambiguously show that the 6.15 MeV (18)Ne state two-proton decay proceeds through a (2)He diproton resonance (31%) and democratic or virtual sequential decay (69%). The quoted branching ratio has been deduced from relative angle and momentum correlations of the emitted proton pairs.
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Catania, Catania, Italy. raciti@lns.infn.it
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Raciti
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Cardella
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De Napoli
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Rapisarda
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Amorini
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Sfienti