Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Correlation symmetries in sequential three-body final state reactions

Journal Article · · Physical Review, C (Nuclear Physics); (United States)
; ;  [1]
  1. Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306 (United States)
The alpha-particle decay angular correlations for intermediate [sup 15]N[sup *] excited states in the reaction [sup 7]Li([sup 12]C,[sup 15]N[sup *][r arrow][alpha]+[sup 11]B(g.s.))[alpha] are found to exhibit symmetry about 90[degree] relative to the beam axis in the reaction plane, in the barycentric coordinates of the decay. The limiting case necessary to produce this symmetry also yields azimuthal symmetry. It is therefore sometimes unnecessary to measure out-of-plane correlations in order to integrate over all angles for the purpose of determining particle decay branching ratios. We use the observed symmetry to establish [Gamma][sub [alpha]]/[Gamma]=0.60[plus minus]0.04 for the 12.56 MeV excited state of [sup 15]N (absolute uncertainty is [similar to]15%).
OSTI ID:
6991731
Journal Information:
Physical Review, C (Nuclear Physics); (United States), Journal Name: Physical Review, C (Nuclear Physics); (United States) Vol. 47:2; ISSN 0556-2813; ISSN PRVCAN
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English