One-nucleon transfer reactions in the 20 Ne + 76 Ge system at 𝐸lab=15.3MeV/u

Abstract

Background: The nuclear matrix element (NME) is an important quantity in studies of the neutrinoless double beta (0 nu beta beta) decay, for which the 76Ge nucleus is one of the candidate isotopes for direct searches. The NME might be experimentally constrained by heavy-ion double charge exchange (HI-DCE) reaction at relevant energies. However feasibility of the HI-DCE as a tool for the NME requires accurate analyses of the competing multisteps one-nucleon transfers that connects the same initial and final mass partitions. Purpose: In this work we present the one-proton stripping and one-neutron pickup reactions in the 20Ne + 76Ge system measured at 15.3 MeV/u. These one-nucleon transfer reactions are used to benchmark the direct reaction and nuclear structure models that will be used to compute the contribution of multinucleon transfers competing with the HI-DCE. Methods: Experimental data of differential cross sections are compared with coupled reaction channel calculations using spectroscopic amplitudes as obtained from large-scale shell model. The validity of model space and interactions adopted to describe the target and the targetlike nuclei are further checked against (d,p) and (3He,d) data available in the literature. Results: We obtain an overall good description of experimental data for the one-proton stripping and one-neutron pickup transfer in the 20Ne+ 76Ge reactions. We also reproduce the behavior of the cross sections for channels in the 76Ge(3He,d) 77As and the 76Ge(p,d) 75Ge data. Conclusions: The result obtained in this work fills some intermediate one-nucleon transfer steps in the intricate multitransfer paths that compete with the direct meson exchange mechanism for the heavy-ion double charge exchange.