https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01556-y
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Effects of energy levels on the double-differential cross sections for 
C reaction below 20 MeV
1
College of Physics, Guangxi Normal University, 541004, Guilin, China
2
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Technology, 541004, Guilin, China
3
China Nuclear Data Center, China Institute of Atomic Energy, 102413, Beijing, China
Received:
23
December
2024
Accepted:
26
March
2025
Published online:
28
April
2025
The nuclear data of C reaction are very important in describing the evolution of nuclear astrophysics, understanding the cluster structure of light nuclei, and producting the radiocarbon. Based on the unified Hauser-Feshbach and exciton model, a statistical theory of light nucleus reaction (STLN) is improved to describe the effects of energy levels on the double-differential cross sections of neutron and charged particles for C reaction. The individual contributions of every energy level of the target and different residual nuclei have been analysed. The calculated results agree well with all of the existing experimental double-differential cross sections of outgoing neutron. And the theoretical analysis provides an evidence for the existence of the possible levels of 
C. The results also indicate that the contributions of the direct inelastic scattering derived from DWBA theory and the three-body breakup reaction should be considered. Especially, the contributions of (n, 2n) channel of the 6-th energy level of C have been considered. The doubt regarding the significant discrepancies observed near 3-MeV exit energy range for two closely spaced incident energies of 8.09 MeV and 8.24 MeV has been clarified. Furthermore, the total double-differential cross sections of outgoing proton, deuteron, triton, and 
can be self-consistently predicted at arbitrary outgoing angles and incident energies for 
reaction.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
