Observation of the production of 8Li fragments in alpha-particle interaction with photoemulsion nuclei

Abstract

About 37 × 103 events of alpha-particle interaction with photoemulsion nuclei were scanned. Among them, 339 events involving the production of a 8Li fragment and the decay 8Li →8 Be → 2α were found. Over the region extending up to 60 MeV, the energy spectrum of 8Li is consistent with the mechanism of fragment evaporation from an excited nucleus. At 8Li energies in excess of 70 MeV, the existence of a 8Li fragment in target nuclei before their interaction with a projectile is possibly observed with a probability of about 10−5.