decay of unbound neutron-hole states in Sn

Vaquero, V.*; Jungclaus, A.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Wimmer, K.*; Gargano, A.*; Tostevin, J. A.*; Chen, S.*; Ncher, E.*; Sahin, E.*; 志賀 慶明*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 118(20), p.202502_1 - 202502_5, 2017/05

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.202502

Excited states in Sn were populated following one-neutron knockout reaction from an unstable Sn beam at the RIBF laboratory in RIKEN. In addition to the already known rays, additional strength was observed for the first time in the excitation-energy range 3.5-5.5 MeV. Since the neutron separation energy of Sn is low, this observation provides direct evidence for the radioactive decay of neutron-unbound states in this nucleus. The ability of decay to compete with neutron emission was attributed to a mismatch between the wave functions of the initial and final states in the neutron emission case. These findings suggest that in the region south-east of Sn, nuclear structure effects play a significant role in the decay of unbound states, which are instead usually ignored in the evaluation of neutron-emission probabilities in astrophysical simulations.