Anatomy of three-body decay II. Decay mechanism and resonance structure

We use the hyperspherical adiabatic expansion method to discuss the the two mechanisms of sequential and direct three-body decay. Both short-range and Coulomb interactions are included. Resonances are assumed initially populated by a process independent of the subsequent decay. The lowest adiabatic potentials describe the resonances rather accurately at distances smaller than the outer turning point of the confining barrier. We illustrate with realistic examples of nuclei from neutron ($^{6}$He) and proton ($^{17}$Ne) driplines as well as excited states of beta-stable nuclei ($^{12}$C).Comment: To be published in Nuclear Physics

Unbound states in 12^{12}C populated by γ\gamma-decay of the (Jπ,T)=(2+,1)(J^{\pi},T) = (2^+,1) 16.11 MeV state

The reaction $^{11}\textrm{B}+p$ has been used to populate the $(J^\pi,T) = (2^+,1)$ state at an excitation energy of 16.11 MeV in $^{12}$C. $\gamma$-decay to unbound states in $^{12}$C are identified from analysis of the decay of the populated daughter states. Due to a new technique, $\gamma$-decay to the 10.8 MeV 1$^-$ state is observed for the first time, and transitions to the 9.64 MeV (3$^-$) and 12.71 MeV (1$^+$) are confirmed. Unresolved transitions to natural parity strength at 10 MeV and 11.5-13 MeV are also observed. For all transitions partial widths are deducedComment: Corrected small typographical errors and added more details on data analysi

Investigating 16O with the 15N(p,{\alpha})12C reaction

The 16O nucleus was investigated through the 15N(p,{\alpha})12C reaction at excitation energies from Ex = 12 231 to 15 700 keV using proton beams from a 5 MeV Van de Graaff accelerator at beam energies of Ep = 331 to 3800 keV. Alpha decay from resonant states in 16O was strongly observed for ten known excited states in this region. The candidate 4-alpha cluster state at Ex = 15.1 MeV was investigated particularly intensely in order to understand its particle decay channels.Comment: Submitted for Proceedings of Fourth International Workshop on State of the Art in Nuclear Cluster Physics (SOTANCP4), held from May 13 - 18, 2018 in Galveston, TX, US

Deep rest-frame far-UV spectroscopy of the giant Lyman-alpha emitter 'Himiko'

We present deep 10h VLT/XSHOOTER spectroscopy for an extraordinarily luminous and extended Lya emitter at z=6.595 referred to as Himiko and first discussed by Ouchi et al. (2009), with the purpose of constraining the mechanisms powering its strong emission. Complementary to the spectrum, we discuss NIR imaging data from the CANDELS survey. We find neither for HeII nor any metal line a significant excess, with 3 sigma upper limits of 6.8, 3.1, and 5.8x10^{-18} erg/s/cm^2 for CIV $\lambda$1549, HeII $\lambda$1640, CIII] $\lambda$1909, respectively, assuming apertures with 200 km/s widths and offset by -250 km/s w.r.t to the peak Lya redshift. These limits provide strong evidence that an AGN is not a major contribution to Himiko's Lya flux. Strong conclusions about the presence of PopIII star-formation or gravitational cooling radiation are not possible based on the obtained HeII upper limit. Our Lya spectrum confirms both spatial extent and flux (8.8+/-0.5x10^{-17} erg/s/cm^2) of previous measurements. In addition, we can unambiguously exclude any remaining chance of it being a lower redshift interloper by significantly detecting a continuum redwards of Lya, while being undetected bluewards

Three-body decays: structure, decay mechanism and fragment properties

We discuss the three-body decay mechanisms of many-body resonances. R-matrix sequential description is compared with full Faddeev computation. The role of the angular momentum and boson symmetries is also studied. As an illustration we show the computed $\alpha$-particle energy distribution after the decay of 12C(1^+) resonance at 12.7 MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Proceedings of the workshop "Critical Stability of Few-Body Quantum Systems" 200

Effects of a New Triple-alpha Reaction on X-ray Bursts of a Helium Accreting Neutron Star

The effects of a new triple-$\alpha$ reaction rate (OKK rate) on the helium flash of a helium accreting neutron star in a binary system have been investigated. Since the ignition points determine the properties of a thermonuclear flash of type I X-ray bursts, we examine the cases of different accretion rates, $dM/dt (\dot{M})$, of helium from $3\times10^{-10} M_{\odot} \rm yr^{-1}$ to $3\times10^{-8} M_{\odot} \rm yr^{-1}$, which could cover the observed accretion rates. We find that for the cases of low accretion rates, nuclear burnings are ignited at the helium layers of rather low densities. As a consequence, helium deflagration would be triggered for all cases of lower accretion rate than $\dot{M}\simeq 3\times10^{-8} M_{\odot} \rm yr^{-1}$. We find that OKK rate could be barely consistent with the available observations of the X-ray bursts on the helium accreting neutron star. However this coincidence is found to depend on the properties of crustal heating and the neutron star model.We suggest that OKK rate would be reduced by a factor of $10^{2-3}$ for $10^8$ K in the range of the observational errors.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure