Modeling the electric dipole strength of neutron-rich ${}^8$He: Prediction of multineutron collective excitations

Abstract

We investigate the multineutron excitations of neutron-rich ${}^8$He in the electric dipole strength using a ${}^4$He+$n$+$n$+$n$+$n$ five-body model. Many-body unbound states of ${}^8$He are obtained in the complex scaling method. We found that the different excitation modes coexist in the dipole strength below the excitation energy of 20 MeV. The strength below 10 MeV comes from the ${}^7$He+$n$ channel, indicating the sequential breakup of ${}^8$He via the ${}^7$He resonance to ${}^6$He+$n$+$n$. Above 10 MeV, the strength is obtained from many-body continuum states with strong configuration mixings, suggesting a new collective motion of four neutrons with the dipole oscillation against ${}^4$He.

Comments: 6 pages, 5 figures