24.5 A MeV 6He+p elastic and inelastic scattering

Abstract The structure of 6 He is explored with proton elastic and inelastic scattering to the first 2 + excited state ( Q =−1.8 MeV) of 6 He in the inverse kinematics using a 24.5  A  MeV 6 He beam. The distorted wave approximation (DWA) with an optical potential obtained by folding an effective nucleon–nucleon (NN) g -matrix with the 6 He density matrix elements as given by a large basis shell model is used to analyse the data. The comparison of predictions with the data confirms the view that 6 He has an extended (halo) neutron matter distribution.