Breakup of the proton halo nucleus B-8 near barrier energies

The dynamics of a nuclear open quantum system could be revealed in the correlations between the breakup fragments of halo nuclei. The breakup mechanism of a proton halo nuclear system is of particular interest as the Coulomb polarization may play an important role, which, however, remains an open question. Here we use a highly efficient silicon detector array and measure the correlations between the breakup fragments of B-8 incident on Sn-120 at near-barrier energies. The energy and angular correlations can be explained by a fully quantum mechanical method based on the state-of-the-art continuum discretized coupled channel calculations. The results indicate that, compared to the neutron halo nucleus He-6, B-8 presents distinctive reaction dynamics: the dominance of the elastic breakup. This breakup occurs mainly via the short-lived continuum states, almost exhausts the Be-7 yield, indicating the effect of Coulomb polarization on the proton halo state. The correlation information reveals that the prompt breakup mechanism dominates, occurring predominantly on the outgoing trajectory. We also show that, as a large environment, the continuum of B-8 breakup may not significantly influence elastic scattering and complete fusion. Halo-structured nuclei are examples of many-body open quantum system. Here the authors use a complete kinematics measurement and find an elastic breakup of proton halo nucleus B-8.