Speaker
Description
We propose to measure the yields of 4He and 4Li in relativistic heavy-ion collisions to
clarify a mechanism of light nuclei production. Since the masses of 4He and 4Li are
almost equal, the yield of 4Li predicted by the thermal model is five times bigger than
that of 4He which reflects the different numbers of internal degrees of freedom of the
two nuclides. Their internal structures are, however, very different: the alpha particle is
well bound and compact while 4Li is weakly bound and loose. Within the coalescence
model, the ratio of yields of 4Li to 4He is shown to be significantly smaller than that
in the thermal model and the ratio decreases fast from central to peripheral collisions
of relativistic heavy-ion collisions because the coalescence rate strongly depends on the
nucleon source radius. Since the nuclide 4Li is unstable and it decays into 3He and p after
roughly 30 fm/c, the yield of 4Li can be experimentally obtained through a measurement
of the 3He − p correlation function.
