Deexcitation of a virtual cluster in a nucleus as a source of information about unexplored properties of the quasielastic knockout of clusters by protons

A new type of experiments on the quasielastic knockout of clusters is proposed. Calculations are performed using a microscopic formalism in which the operator of the reaction under investigation is expressed in terms of nucleon variables. The Glauber-Sitenko theory is used to accomplish this end. The fundamentals of the general formalism, including the technique of spectroscopic factors for excited clusters and the distorted-wave approximation, are outlined. The reaction 12C(p,p α)8Be is used as an example to demonstrate that the momentum distributions of the recoil nucleus 8Be in each of the states 0+, 2+, and 4+ depends strongly on the angle of scattering of the fast proton and on the angles specifying the orientation of the recoil momentum q relative to the beam and to the plane of scattering of the fast proton. 41 refs., 9 figs., 2 tabs