Empirical formalism for projectile fragmentation and production of new neutron-rich nuclei with ribs

The projectile fragment separator type radioactive ion beam (RIB) facilities, being developed in different laboratories, provide the scope for producing many new exotic nuclei through fragmentation of high energy radioactive ion (RI) beams. A new empirical parametrization for the estimation of cross-sections of projectile fragments has been prescribed for studying the advantages and limitations of high energy RI beams for the production of new exotic nuclei. The parametrization reproduces the experimental data for the production of fragments from neutron-rich projectiles accurately in contrast to the existing parametrization which tends to overestimate the cross-section of neutron-rich fragments in most cases. The modified formalism has been used to compute the cross-sections of neutron-rich species produced by fragmentation of radioactive projectiles (RIBs). It has been found that, given any limit of production cross-section, the exoticity of the fragment increases rather slowly and shows a saturation tendency as the projectile is made more and more exotic. This essentially limits, to an extent, the utility of very neutron-rich radioactive beams vis-a-vis production of new neutron-rich exotic species.