Neutron decay ofC15resonances by measurements of neutron time-of-flight

Abstract

The neutron decay of the resonant states of light neutron-rich nuclei is an important and poorly explored property, useful to extract valuable nuclear structure information. In the present paper the neutron decay of the C15 resonances populated via the two-neutron transfer reaction C13(O18,O16n) at 84-MeV incident energy is reported for the first time using an innovative technique which couples the MAGNEX magnetic spectrometer and the EDEN neutron detector array. Experimental data show that the resonances below the one-neutron emission threshold decay to the C14 ground state via one-neutron emission with an almost 100% total branching ratio, whereas the recently observed C15 giant pairing vibration at 13.7 MeV mainly decays via two-neutron emission.