10C+α elastic scattering: A study of the proton-rich 14O nucleus and α clustering

The 10C +alpha elastic cross section was measured to investigate the structure of the proton-rich 14O nucleus. A radioactive beam of 10C was produced at the RI beam separator CRIB using the 10B(p, n)10C reaction with a 10B beam energy of 6.99 MeV/nucleon. A complex resonant structure is observed in 14O in the excitation energy region around 13-18 MeV, improving significantly our knowledge on the structure of this nucleus. An R-matrix analysis was performed to determine the properties of resonances. alpha clustering structure is observed for J = 0+ and J = 2+ at 13.44 and 14.88 MeV, respectively. These results are compared with the alpha clustering structure reported in the mirror nucleus 14C.