Light-charged-particle emission from hot 32S*formed in 20Ne + 12C reaction

Inclusive energy distributions for light charged particles (p , d , t and have been measured in the ²⁰Ne (158, 170, 180, 200 MeV) + ¹²C reactionsintheangularrange$10^°$ - - $50^°$.Exclusivelight-charged-particleenergydistributionmeasurementswerealsodoneforthesamesystemat158 MeVbombardingenergybyin - planelightchargedparticle - - fragmentcoincidence.Pre - equilibriumcomponentshavebeenseparatedoutfromprotonenergyspectrausingthemovingsourcemodelconsideringtwosources.ThedatahavebeencomparedwiththepredictionsofthestatisticalmodelcodeCASCADE.Ithasbeenobservedthatsignificantdeformationeffectswereneededtobeintroducedinthecompoundnucleusinordertoexplaintheshapeoftheevaporated$d$,$t$energyspectra.Forprotons, evaporatedenergyspectrawereratherinsensitivetonucleardeformation, thoughangulardistributionscouldnotbeexplainedwithoutdeformation.Thedecaysequenceofthehot$³²S$nucleushasbeeninvestigatedthroughexclusivelight - - charged - particlemeasurementsusingthe$²⁰Ne$$(158 MeV) + $¹²C reaction. Information on the sequential decay chain has been extracted through a comparison of the experimental data with the predictions of the statistical model. It is observed from the present analysis that exclusive light-charged-particle data may be used as a powerful tool to probe the decay sequence of hot light compound systems.