High precision probe of the fully sequential decay width of the Hoyle state in C
D. Dell'Aquila🇫🇷 · I. Lombardo🇮🇹 · G. Verde🇫🇷 · M. Vigilante🇮🇹 · L. Acosta🇲🇽 · C. Agodi🇮🇹 · F. Cappuzzello🇮🇹 · D. Carbone🇮🇹 · M. Cavallaro🇮🇹 · S. Cherubini🇮🇹 · A. Cvetinovic🇮🇹 · G. D'Agata🇮🇹 and 16 other authors
The decay path of the Hoyle state in C () has been studied with the reaction induced at . High resolution invariant mass spectroscopy techniques have allowed to unambiguously disentangle direct and sequential decays of the state passing through the ground state of Be. Thanks to the almost total absence of background and the attained resolution, a fully sequential decay contribution to the width of the state has been observed. The direct decay width is negligible, with an upper limit of ( C.L.). The precision of this result is about a factor higher than previous studies. This has significant implications on nuclear structure, as it provides constraints to - cluster model calculations, where higher precision limits are needed.