arXiv:2309.15180nucl-ex
Strong evidence for 9N and the limits of existence of atomic nuclei
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Abstract
The boundaries of the Chart of Nuclides contain exotic isotopes that possess extreme proton-toneutron asymmetries. Here we report on strong evidence of 9N, one of the most exotic proton-rich isotopes where more than one half of its constitute nucleons are unbound. With seven protons and two neutrons, this extremely proton-rich system would represent the first-known example of a ground-state five-proton emitter. The invariant-mass spectrum of its decay products can be fit with two peaks whose energies are consistent with the theoretical predictions of an open-quantum-system approach, however we cannot rule out the possibility that only a single resonance-like peak is present in the spectrum.
The arxiv version of the paper says: the decay widths of the low-lying states increase, eventually melting into an unresolvable continuum as their lifetimes become commensurate with typical reaction and single-particle timescales. Here, the very notion of the nuclear state…
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