Alpha structures of 16O at high excitation energies by 3He + 13C nuclear reactions

Abstract

We investigated the occurrence of α clustered states in ¹⁶O at high excitation energies by analyzing ³He + ¹³C reactions in the 1.4 - 2.2 MeV energy range. The branching ratios between the α decays leading to ¹²C in the Hoyle versus the ground states are larger than calculation based on barrier penetration models, suggesting the existence of states with large cluster components in the parent nucleus.