Dynamical description of the breakup of one-neutron halo nuclei ¹¹Be and ¹⁹C

We investigate the breakup of the one-neutron halo nuclei ¹¹Be and ¹⁹C within a dynamical model of the continuum excitation of the projectile. The time evolution of the projectile in coordinate space is described by solving the three-dimensional time dependent Schrödinger equation, treating the projectile-target (both Coulomb and nuclear) interaction as a time dependent external perturbation. The pure Coulomb breakup dominates the relative energy spectra of the fragments in the peak region, while the nuclear breakup is important at higher relative energies. The coherent sum of the two contributions provides a good overall description of the experimental spectra. Cross sections of the first order perturbation theory are derived as a limit of our dynamical model. The dynamical effects are found to be of the order of 10%–15% for beam energies in the range of 60–80 MeV/nucleon. A comparison of our results with those of a post-form distorted wave Born approximation shows that the magnitudes of the higher order effects are dependent on the theoretical model.