Single-neutron knockout from 20 C and the structure of 19 C

Abstract The low-lying unbound level structure of the halo nucleus 19 C has been investigated using single-neutron knockout from 20 C on a carbon target at 280 MeV/nucleon. The invariant mass spectrum, derived from the momenta of the forward going beam velocity 18 C fragment and neutrons, was found to be dominated by a very narrow near threshold ( E rel = 0.036 ( 1 ) MeV) peak. Two less strongly populated resonance-like features were also observed at E rel = 0.84 ( 4 )  and  2.31 ( 3 ) MeV, both of which exhibit characteristics consistent with neutron p -shell hole states. Comparisons of the energies, measured cross sections and parallel momentum distributions to the results of shell-model and eikonal reaction calculations lead to spin-parity assignments of 5 / 2 1 + and 1 / 2 1 − for the levels at E x = 0.62 ( 9 )  and  2.89 ( 10 ) MeV with S n = 0.58 ( 9 ) MeV. Spectroscopic factors were also deduced and found to be in reasonable accord with shell-model calculations. The valence neutron configuration of the 20 C ground state is thus seen to include, in addition to the known 1 s 1 / 2 2 component, a significant 0 d 5 / 2 2 contribution. The level scheme of 19 C, including significantly the 1 / 2 1 − cross-shell state, is well accounted for by the YSOX shell-model interaction developed from the monopole-based universal interaction.