Determination of the cluster spectroscopic factor of the 10.3 MeV state in 12Be

From an inelastic excitation and breakup experiment with a ¹²Be beam at 29 MeV/u, a large ⁴He+⁸He cluster decay width of 1.1(2) MeV is determined for a state at an excitation energy of 10.3 MeV and with a spin parity of 0+. By using the R-matrix analysis, a cluster spectroscopic factor of 0.53(10) is extracted from the cluster partial width, providing a strong support for the clustering structure in ¹²Be. A specially designed zero-degree telescope played an essential role in the present experiment and has been demonstrated to be a promising tool in future studies of the molecular-like resonances near the cluster separation threshold.