Paper detail

Ground-state properties of neutron-rich Mg isotopes

We analyze recently-measured total reaction cross sections for 24-38Mg isotopes incident on 12C targets at 240 MeV/nucleon by using the folding model and antisymmetrized molecular dynamics(AMD). The folding model well reproduces the measured reaction cross sections, when the projectile densities are evaluated by the deformed Woods-Saxon (def-WS) model with AMD deformation. Matter radii of 24-38Mg are then deduced from the measured reaction cross sections by fine-tuning the parameters of the def-WS model. The deduced matter radii are largely enhanced by nuclear deformation. Fully-microscopic AMD calculations with no free parameter well reproduce the deduced matter radii for 24-36Mg, but still considerably underestimate them for 37,38Mg. The large matter radii suggest that 37,38Mg are candidates for deformed halo nucleus. AMD also reproduces other existing measured ground-state properties (spin-parity, total binding energy, and one-neutron separation energy) of Mg isotopes. Neutron-number (N) dependence of deformation parameter is predicted by AMD. Large deformation is seen from 31Mg with N = 19 to a drip-line nucleus 40Mg with N = 28, indicating that both the N = 20 and 28 magicities disappear. N dependence of neutron skin thickness is also predicted by AMD.