Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2015) 130: 143
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2015-15143-0

Regular Article

Signals of the Giant Pairing Vibration in ¹⁴C and ¹⁵C nuclei populated by (¹⁸O,¹⁶O) two-neutron transfer reactions

¹ Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, INFN, Via S. Sofia 62, 95125, Catania, Italy
² Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università degli Studi di Catania and INFN - Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy

^* e-mail: carboned@lns.infn.it

Received: 5 May 2015
Revised: 10 June 2015
Accepted: 28 June 2015
Published online: 23 July 2015

Abstract

The ¹²C(¹⁸O,¹⁶O)¹⁴C and ¹³C(¹⁸O,¹⁶O)¹⁵C reactions have been explored at 84MeV incident energy and the ejectiles have been detected at forward angles by the MAGNEX spectrometer. Thanks to the peculiarities of MAGNEX and to the ray-reconstruction technique, high-resolution spectra up to 22MeV excitation energy and high-quality cross-section angular distributions have been obtained. In the region above the two-neutron emission threshold, unknown wide structures have been observed in both the ¹⁴C and ¹⁵C residual nuclei. A detailed analysis of such resonances identifies them as the long-searched Giant Pairing Vibration. These data represent the first experimental signature of it.