High-resolution measurement of absoluteα-decay widths inO16

Abstract

By using a large-acceptance position-sensitive silicon detector array in coincidence with the high-resolution Munich Q3D spectrograph, unambiguous measurements have been made of the absolute {alpha}-particle decay widths from excited states in {sup 16}O* in the energy range 13.85 to 15.87 MeV. Carbon targets have been bombarded with 42-MeV {sup 6}Li beams to induce {sub 6}{sup 12}C({sub 3}{sup 6}Li, d){sub 8}{sup 16}O* reactions. The deuteron ejectiles were measured in the Q3D and the results gated by {sup 4}He+{sup 12}C breakup products detected in the silicon array, the efficiency of which was modeled using Monte Carlo simulations. By comparing total population and breakup-gated spectra, the following absolute {alpha}-decay widths have been measured with high resolution: {Gamma}{sub {alpha}}0/{Gamma}{sub tot} = 0.87{+-}0.11 (13.980 MeV), 1.04{+-}0.15 (14.302 MeV), 0.92{+-}0.10 (14.399 MeV), 0.59{+-}0.04 (14.815 MeV), 0.88{+-}0.18 (15.785 MeV), and {Gamma}{sub {alpha}}1/{Gamma}{sub tot}=1.14{+-}0.08 (14.660 MeV), 0.46{+-}0.06 (14.815 MeV).