Probing the halo structure

Halo nuclei are characterized by outer nucleons that reside mostly in the classically forbidden region. The large average distance of halo nucleons suggests the decoupling of core and halo degrees of freedom. This is the basis for the few-body structure models developed in the past decade. Few-body models have been the most frequent tool when probing the halo structure. Coulomb dissociation, Knock-out or Transfer reactions have provided detailed structure information for exotic nuclei. Nowadays, the accumulating data impose severe tests for the few-body models. We discuss the achievements of these models as well as their limitations. To cite this article: F.M. Nunes, C. R. Physique 4 (2003).