3He cluster structure of 12C.

The reaction /sup 9/Be(/sup 6/Li,t)/sup 12/C was studied at 32 MeV. Selective population of states was observed up to the 14.1 MeV state in /sup 12/C. The high probability for three or more body processes resulted in a large continuum yield which prevented the observation of the population of states in the 17--22 MeV excitation region of /sup 12/C. Hauser-Feshbach calculations show that the statistical compound nucleus contribution to the cross section is small. The experimental angular distributions are well reproduced by distorted-wave Born approximation calculations. The extracted relative spectroscopic strengths are in good agreement with theoretical values. The T = 1 15.1 and 16.1 MeV states were not observed. A measurement of the /sup 9/Be(/sup 6/Li,/sup 3/He)/sup 12/B cross sections to their analog states shows that these states would have a peak height of only 10% of the continuum yield, making it difficult to determine if these states are populated in the present reaction.