Distorted-wave Born approximation study of the 11Li(p,t)9Li reaction

Abstract

The reaction 11Li(p,t)9Li(gs) at an incident energy of 4 MeV is treated in terms of a simplistic distorted-wave Born approximation transfer. The halo neutrons involved in the reaction are treated as a di-neutron cluster transferred in a simultaneous process. This appears to be a good approximation of the mechanism. The dominant contribution to the reaction comes from the known (1s 1/2)2 structure component of the ground state of 11Li, and the cross section angular distribution seems to be relatively insensitive to the fact that 11 Li has an anomalously large radius due to its Borromean halo properties. Significantly this simple treatment of the reaction is in much better agreement with the experimental angular distribution than a more sophisticated calculation.