Tanaka, Junki ; Yang, Zaihong ; Typel, Stefan ; Adachi, Satoshi ; Bai, Shiwei ; van Beek, Patrik ; Beaumel, Didier ; Fujikawa, Yuki ; Han, Jiaxing ; Heil, Sebastian ; Huang, Siwei ; Inoue, Azusa ; Jiang, Ying ; Knösel, Marco ; Kobayashi, Nobuyuki ; Kubota, Yuki ; Liu, Wei ; Lou, Jianling ; Maeda, Yukie ; Matsuda, Yohei ; Miki, Kenjiro ; Nakamura, Shoken ; Ogata, Kazuyuki ; Panin, Valerii ; Scheit, Heiko ; Schindler, Fabia ; Schrock, Philipp ; Symochko, Dmytro ; Tamii, Atsushi ; Uesaka, Tomohiro ; Wagner, Vadim ; Yoshida, Kazuki ; Zenihiro, Juzo ; Aumann, Thomas (2021)
Formation of α clusters in dilute neutron-rich matter.
In: Science, 371 (6526)
doi: 10.1126/science.abe4688
Artikel, Bibliographie

Kurzbeschreibung (Abstract)

The surface of neutron-rich heavy nuclei, with a neutron skin created by excess neutrons, provides an important terrestrial model system to study dilute neutron-rich matter. By using quasi-free α cluster–knockout reactions, we obtained direct experimental evidence for the formation of α clusters at the surface of neutron-rich tin isotopes. The observed monotonous decrease of the reaction cross sections with increasing mass number, in excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction, implies a tight interplay between α-cluster formation and the neutron skin. This result, in turn, calls for a revision of the correlation between the neutron-skin thickness and the density dependence of the symmetry energy, which is essential for understanding neutron stars. Our result also provides a natural explanation for the origin of α particles in α decay.

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