Analysis of 11B + 13,14C scattering and 13C(11B, 10B)14C reaction data at E lab(11B) = 45 MeV using energy dependent optical model systematics for carbon isotopes

Existing data for 11B + 13,14C elastic and inelastic scattering at E lab(11B) = 45 MeV, as well as new data for the 13C(11B, 10B)14C reaction for transitions populating the ground state of 14C and the ground plus first four excited states of 10B, were analysed using the coupled-channels (CC) and coupled-reaction-channels (CRC) methods. A recently proposed energy dependent optical model (OM) potential for carbon isotopes, consisting of Woods-Saxon (WS) volume real and WS volume plus surface imaginary components, applied successfully to OM analyses of scattering from mid-mass (A > 27) and heavy target nuclei, was used to generate the distorted waves in the entrance and exit channels. The data analysed in this work cover the whole angular range, enabling the most important reaction mechanisms leading to the production of nuclei in the exit reaction channels to be established. For these light boron + carbon systems, a reasonable fit to both scattering and reaction data over the full angular range required some modification of the parameters of the OM potential extracted from the energy-dependent carbon systematics: omission of the surface imaginary part and a slight increase in the radius of the real part. Inclusion of a sufficient number of inelastic channels in a CC analysis of the 11B + 13,14C elastic scattering was shown to be important at mid-range scattering angles, while for the 13C(11B, 10B)14C reaction inclusion of two-step neutron transfers via low-lying excited states of 11B was required to give good overall agreement between the CRC calculations and the data. We suggest the analytical form of the global carbon OM potential may benefit from an additional parameterization of the radius of the real part and the depth of the surface imaginary part, dependent on the target mass number, to give better applicability to the analysis of scattering from light target nuclei. © 2024 IOP Publishing Ltd. All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.