Study of halo structure of 16C from reaction cross section measurement Original Research Article

The reaction cross sections for 12,16C have been measured at the energy of 83AMeV by a new experimental method. The larger enhancement of the 16C reaction cross section at the low energy has been used to study the density distribution of 16C. The finite-range Glauber-model calculations for different density distributions have been compared with the experimental data. The analysis suggests that 16C mainly has a 14C(core)+2n structure and shows a strong contribution of (2s1/2)2 for valence neutrons. A large extension of the neutron density distribution to a distance far from the center of the nucleus suggests the formation of neutron halo in the 16C nucleus.