Structure of the 10Li nucleus investigated via the 9Li(d,p)10Li reaction

The structure of the particle unbound nucleus 10Li was investigated in a kinematically complete experiment using the 9Li(d,p)10Li reaction in inverse kinematics at an incident 9Li energy of 20 MeV/nucleon. The experiment utilized the S800 Spectrograph at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory to measure the outgoing 9Li from the breakup of 10Li in coincidence with the recoiling protons from the (d,p) reaction which were measured using an array of silicon detectors. Based on the kinematics of the recoiling protons from the 9Li(d,p) reaction, we measured a lower limit of Δ=33.10±0.08 MeV (i.e., Δ>33.02 MeV) for the mass excess of 10Li which is consistent with previous measurements. Through the complete reconstruction of the breakup kinematics, the structure of 10Li associated with a ground state 9Li core was distinguishable from structure associated with a 9Li core in its first excited state. The observed ratio of 9Li* core events to the total number of 10Li events that were detected in the experiment was 0.10±0.04 at forward center of mass angles (2.7 deg. to 9.5 deg.), and 0.24±0.03 at more backward center of mass angles (11 deg. to 26 deg.). The resulting Q-value spectra was best fit with either a single resonance located at Q=-2.58(11) MeV [corresponding to a neutron separation energy Sn=-0.35(11) MeV] or two resonances located at Q=-3.00(24) MeV [Sn=-0.77(24) MeV] and Q>-2.43 MeV (Sn>-0.2 MeV)