Search for highly excited states in light nuclei with three-body reactions

Abstract

Various three-body break-up reactions resulting from the bombardment of 7Li with 120 MeV 3He have been measured simultaneously in a kinematically complete experiment. Missing-mass spectra have been deduced for 4H, 4He, 4Li, 5He, 5Li, 6He, 6Li and 7Li. The ground states of 4H and 5He are well described as n-t and n-α P-wave final-state interactions, respectively. Evidence is found for relatively narrow states at very high excitation energies in several nuclei. The results are compared with those of other authors and with various theoretical predictions.