Studies of continuum states in 16 Ne using three-body correlation techniques

Two-proton decay of the unbound nucleus Ne-16 , produced in one-neutron knockout from a 500 MeV/u Ne-17 beam, has been studied at GSI. The ground state, at a resonance energy 1.388(15) MeV, ( MeV) above the O-14 +p+p threshold, and two narrow resonances at MeV and 7.57(6) MeV have been investigated. A comparison of the energy difference between the first excited 2(+) state and the 0(+) ground state in Ne-16 with its mirror nucleus C-16 reveals a small Thomas-Ehrman shift (TES) of keV. A trend of the TES for the T = 2 quintet is obtained by completing the known data with a prediction for F-16 obtained from an IMME analysis. The decay mechanisms of the observed three resonances were revealed from an analysis of the energy and angular correlations of the O-14 +p+p decay products. The ground state decay can be considered as a genuine three-body (democratic) mode and the excited states decay sequentially via states in the intermediate nucleus F-15 , the 3.22 MeV state predominantly via the F-15 ground-state resonance, while the 7.57 MeV state decays via the 5/2(+) resonance in F-15 at 2.8 MeV above the O-14 +p+p threshold. Further, from an analysis of angular correlations, the spin-parity of the 7.57 MeV state has been determined as and assigned as the third 2(+) state in Ne-16 based on a comparison with C-16.