Clustering in $^{18}$O - absolute determination of branching ratios via high-resolution particle spectroscopy

Abstract

The determination of absolute branching ratios for high-energy states in light nuclei is an important and useful tool for probing the underlying nuclear structure of individual resonances: for example, in establishing the tendency of an excited state towards \alpha α -cluster structure. Difficulty arises in measuring these branching ratios due to similarities in available decay channels, such as ( \mathbf{^{18}} 18 O, \mathbf{n} 𝐧 ) and ( \mathbf{^{18}} 18 O, \mathbf{2n} 2 𝐧 ), as well as differences in geometric efficiencies due to population of bound excited levels in daughter nuclei. Methods are presented using Monte Carlo techniques to overcome these issues.