⁷Be breakup on heavy and light targets

In this paper we present all-order quantum mechanical calculations of ⁷Be breakup on heavy (²⁰⁸Pb) and light (¹²C) targets. We examine the issues concerning the extraction of the astrophysical S -factor S₃₄(0) from the breakup data. We discuss the interplay between Coulomb and nuclear breakup, and the importance of higher-order couplings on the cross section. We show that nuclear and Coulomb contributions are not separable using the standard angular selection criterion as nuclear breakup remains large for small scattering angles, even for the heavy target. However, by selecting an upper limit on the relative energy between the final fragments, the contribution from the nuclear breakup can be significantly reduced such that Coulomb breakup is the main reaction mechanism. We show that the extraction of the asymptotic normalization coefficient may require more careful consideration of the nuclear interior than previously used.