Three-body correlations in direct reactions: Example of Be 6 populated in the (p,n) reaction

Abstract

The Be6 continuum states were populated in the charge-exchange reaction H1(Li6,Be6)n collecting very high statistics data (∼5×106 events) on the three-body α+p+p correlations. The Be6 excitation energy region below ∼3MeV is considered, where the data are dominated by contributions from the 0+ and 2+ states. It is demonstrated how the high-statistics few-body correlation data can be used to extract detailed information on the reaction mechanism. Such a derivation is based on the fact that highly spin-aligned states are typically populated in the direct reactions.