Core excitation effects in the breakup of the one-neutron halo nucleus 11Be on a proton target

Abstract

We investigate the phenomenon of core excitation in the inelastic and breakup of two-body halo nuclei, composed by a valence nucleon and a core. To evaluate the importance of this effect we propose a simple reaction model based on an extension of the standard distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) method. The model takes into account core-excited admixtures in the states of the composite projectile, as well as the possibility of dynamic core excitation due to the interaction of the core with the target. As an application of the model, we present calculations for the breakup of 11Be on a proton target at an incident energy of 63.7 MeV/nucleon, comparing it with the available data for this reaction. We find that the data are well reproduced by the model and that the effect of dynamic core excitation is essential to explain the observed cross section.