Emission of Neutrons and the Neutron Halo of 11Li

The matter distribution of the neutron drip-line nuclei has been a subject of intense interest since pioneering radioactive-beam experiments at Berkeley1). Unusually large interaction cross-sections measured at relativistic energies for 11Li,14Be and 17B nuclei were translated into effective matter radii. It was found that these were significantly larger than for other p-shell nuclei. In particular, the root-mean-square (rms) mass radius of 11Li was found to be 3.2fm, which was considerably larger than the 2.4fm radius of 9Li. At the same time, no signatures for significant deformation of 11Li were found in measurements of electric quadrupole moment by means of laser spectroscopy2).