Coulomb and nuclear interactions in the dynamics of weakly-bound neutron-halo breakup on heavy target

Within our aim to clarify some aspects of the breakup dynamics of loosely-bound neutron-halo projectiles on a heavy target, we apply the continuum discretized coupled-channel formalism to investigate the beryllium Be-11 breakup on a lead Pb-208 target at E-1ab = 140 MeV incident energy. By evidencing that the continuum-continuum couplings are much stronger in the nuclear breakup than in the Coulomb breakup, we conclude that the strength of these couplings in the total breakup is dominated by the nuclear contribution, with the diagonal monopole nuclear potential in the projectile-target center-of-mass having negligible effect on the total and nuclear breakup cross-sections. For this kind of reaction, we show that the condition for the total breakup to approach its dominant component in the absorption region is strongly dependent on the continuum-continuum couplings and the diagonal monopole nuclear potential.

Automated summary

In this study, we investigate the breakup dynamics of beryllium-11 on a lead-208 target using the continuum discretized coupled-channel formalism. Our results suggest that the continuum-continuum couplings in nuclear breakup are much stronger than in Coulomb breakup, indicating that the nuclear contribution dominates the total breakup. The diagonal monopole nuclear potential in the projectile-target center-of-mass has negligible effect on the total and nuclear breakup cross-sections.