Eur. Phys. J. A (2009) 41: 39-51
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2009-10772-y

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Light-charged-particle emission from hot ³²S^*formed in ²⁰Ne + ¹²C reaction

Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Sector - 1, Block - AF, 700 064, Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata, India

^* e-mail: aparajita.dey@saha.ac.in

Received: 12 November 2008
Revised: 11 February 2009
Accepted: 28 March 2009
Published online: 3 May 2009

Abstract

Inclusive energy distributions for light charged particles (p , d , t and have been measured in the ²⁰Ne (158, 170, 180, 200 MeV) + ¹²C

reactionsintheangularrange$10^°$ - - $50^°$.Exclusivelight-charged-particleenergydistributionmeasurementswerealsodoneforthesamesystemat158 MeVbombardingenergybyin - planelightchargedparticle - - fragmentcoincidence.Pre - equilibriumcomponentshavebeenseparatedoutfromprotonenergyspectrausingthemovingsourcemodelconsideringtwosources.ThedatahavebeencomparedwiththepredictionsofthestatisticalmodelcodeCASCADE.Ithasbeenobservedthatsignificantdeformationeffectswereneededtobeintroducedinthecompoundnucleusinordertoexplaintheshapeoftheevaporated$d$,$t$energyspectra.Forprotons, evaporatedenergyspectrawereratherinsensitivetonucleardeformation, thoughangulardistributionscouldnotbeexplainedwithoutdeformation.Thedecaysequenceofthehot$³²S$nucleushasbeeninvestigatedthroughexclusivelight - - charged - particlemeasurementsusingthe$²⁰Ne$$(158 MeV) + $¹²C

reaction. Information on the sequential decay chain has been extracted through a comparison of the experimental data with the predictions of the statistical model. It is observed from the present analysis that exclusive light-charged-particle data may be used as a powerful tool to probe the decay sequence of hot light compound systems.