Coulomb dissociation of 19C

Abstract

We aim to re-investigate the structure of the neutron rich exotic nucleus ^{19}C through studies of its Coulomb breakup reactions, assuming that its excitation is to states in the low energy continuum. The method used retains all finite-range effects associated with the interactions between the breakup fragments and can use realistic wave functions for this possibly halo nucleus. We apply the method to compute the longitudinal momentum distribution of ^{18}C, exclusive neutron angular distribution and relative energy spectrum of ^{19}C following Coulomb breakup of ^{19}C on heavy targets at beam energies below 100 MeV/nucleon. The calculated results are compared with recently available experimental data. In the majority of the few cases, the data favour ^{18}C(0^+) \otimes 1s_{1/2} as the probable ground state configuration of ^{19}C, with a one-neutron separation energy of 0.53 MeV. However, it appears that the existing experimental data do not allow to draw a clear conclusion about the ground state configuration of this nucleus.