PHYSICAL REVIEW C VOLUME 47, NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 199&

Reaction mechanism of Li( He, p) Be and Li( H, n) Be and primordial nucleosynthesis of 9Be
Y. Yamamoto, T. Kajino, and K.-I. Kubo
Department of Physics, Tokyo Metropolitan Unioersity, 1 IM-inami ohs-awa, Hachiohji, Tokyo 192-03, Japan
(Received 27 February 1992)
We investigate in a unified way the reaction mechanism of Li('H, n ) Be and Li( He, p) Be at the low
energies E, 2 MeV of astrophysical interest. Assuming charge independence of the nuclear reaction
amplitudes and taking account of the effects from different isospin contribution, Coulomb interaction,
and associated kinematical conditions properly, we constrain the upper and lower bounds of the total
cross section of 'Li( H, n ) Be theoretically by using knowledge of the Li('He, p) Be reaction. It is found
that the total cross section of Li( H, n ) Be at Gamow window energy E -250 keV is dominated by the
near-threshold T=1 resonance whose resonance parameters are not determined at all experimentally,
although the direct reaction process makes progressively important contributions at higher energies 500
keV ~ E, . Primordial abundance of Be calculated in the inhomogeneous and standard big-bang mod-
els by using the inferred reaction cross section for Li( H, n) Be is compared with recent results of astro-
nomical observations.

PACS number(s): 98.80.Ft, 25.55.Hp

I. INTRODUCTION
Primordial nucleosynthesis of Be is thought to provide
a critical test for cosmological theories of the standard
homogeneous big-bang. Quite recently, two independent
astronomy groups [1,2] have succeeded in an actual
detection of the abundance of Be in the very old halo
metal-deficient dwarf, which shows probably the best
value of an upper limit for the primordial abundance at
the present moment. Their observed abundance is larger
than the value predicted from the standard big-bang
model by many orders of magnitude but of the same or-
der as that predicted from the inhomogeneous model for
primordial nucleosynthesis [3 —5].
In the original paper [3] that predicted a large
enhancement of the Be abundance in the inhomogeneous
model; however, the unmeasured total cross section for
Li( H, n) Be, which proves to be the main nuclear reac-
tion How path for the production of Be, was assumed to
be half that of Li( H, n) Be. Since the yield of Be abun-
dance scales almost linearly with this reaction cross sec-
tion, it is desirable to provide more accurately the reac-
tion rate for better theoretical prediction of the primordi-
al abundance of Be.
There is another way to estimate the cross section for
the Li( H, n) Be reaction, that is, to use the cross section
of the Li( He, p) Be. Although the high-energy data of
this reaction cross section have been accumulated in the
past in order to study the reaction mechanism of two-
nucleon transfer, low-energy cross sections also have re-
cently been measured [6] for astrophysical application.
The two reactions Li( H, n) Be and Li( He, p) Be have
several similarities in the reaction dynamics if the isospin
symmetry holds approximately true in the nuclear in-
teraction, except for a major difference arising from the
Coulomb interaction.
The DWBA analyses of the Li( He, p) Be reaction
cross section have been done at E&,b =3.2, 4.5, and 10.0
MeV by Werby and Edwards [7], although there has been
no theoretical analysis of the Li( H, n) Be reaction re-
ported. They demonstrated good agreement of the
theoretical direct reaction cross section with the observed
data at these energies without taking account of any reso-
nance contribution. Recently the DWBA analyses have
been applied to the Li(p, He) He [8] and ' F(p, He)' 0
[9) reactions of astrophysical interest, too. These studies
have succeeded in describing the observed cross section
at stellar energies, suggesting that the direct reaction pro-
cess may contribute more than previously believed at low
energies. It has been shown in the analyses [7] of the
Li( He, p) Be reaction that the knock-on mechanism is
significant. They have also shown that the cancellation
assumption, which is usually employed in the DWBA
method, is inadequate. Following the same line as Werby
and Edwards had for the Li( He, p) Be reaction, we will
concentrate on examining whether their results are still
correct for the Li( H, n) Be reaction in question.
Through these studies we will meet the challenge of pre-
dicting the Li( H, n) Be reaction cross section by using
all the detailed information on the Li( He, p) Be reaction
data.
After this program was almost completed, we learned
that the low-energy reaction cross section of Li( H, n) Be
has been measured by two experimental groups [10,11].
The two different sets of the measured cross section agree
well with each other in the low-energy region E, (700
keV. Unfortunately, they clearly deviate from each other
at the higher energies and their difference amounts to a
discrepancy by a factor of 2 at E, —1 MeV. Another
careful experiment is desirable to resolve this discrepan-
cy. By comparing our theoretical result with these ob-
served data, we can practically check our theoretical ap-
proach to estimate the Li( H, n) Be reaction cross sec-
tion.
The first purpose of this paper is to try to understand
the reaction mechanism of Li( He, p) Be and

846 1993 The American Physical Society

47 REACTION MECHANISM OF Li( He,p) Be AND. . . 847

Li( H, n) Be at the low energies through careful compar-

ison with the observed data for both reactions. The
second purpose is to theoretically predict at best a possi- where V„'s are the interaction potentials between parti-
ble range of the reaction cross section for Li( H, n) Be. cles x and y. U 9Be is the distorting potential of the final
p
We discuss in the next section the theoretical procedure p+ Be scattering system. The knock-on process can be
to calculate the direct reaction cross section, and deter- represented as
mination of nuclear parameters is explained. Taking ac-
count of the resonance contribution as well as the direct He+( Li=pI31 He)~( Be= He He)+p .
reaction contribution, we then calculate the total cross The corresponding amplitude is
section. The third purpose is to apply the inferred total
cross section for Li( H, n) Be to the primordial nu- T„=&/', '~&%f~v, „+v,„—
U, ~e, &~/', +'& . (4)
cleosynthesis calculations of Be; that will be done in Sec.
III. Sensitivity of the calculated abundance of Be on the Theoretical expressions for the cross sections and
nuclear reaction rate and the other parameters in cosmo- definition of the spectroscopic amplitudes are the same as
logical models is discussed in the same section. Finally, those defined in Ref. 12. We write the mixing coefficient
in Sec. IV we summarize this work. y, which is the product of two spectroscopic amplitudes,
(g He)1/2(g Be )1/2 (&)

II. THE Li( He, p) Be for the stripping mechanism and

AND Li( H, n) Be REACTION CROSS SECTIONS
Li Be 1/2
(gp6He ) 1/2(g )
A. Theoretical method He He

1. Direct reaction cross section for the knock-on mechanism.

In the conventional DWBA treatment we assume a
The direct reaction cross section is calculated employ- large cancellation between the last two terms in each am-
ing the stripping and knock-on mechanisms in the frame- plitude TsT and TKD. However, in the present reactions
work of the distorted-wave Born approximation this point should be carefully considered because the col-
(DWBA). The stripping mechanism for the liding systems consist of light ions having comparable
Li( He, p) Be reaction is represented as masses to one another.
( He=dp)+ Li~( Be=d Li)+p . The angular momentum quantum numbers associated
with the bound-state wave functions appearing in the am-
The transition amplitude for this process can be ex- plitudes TsT and TKQ are as follows. For the stripping
pressed by mechanism,

TABLE I. The potential parameters for the bound state (a), transition interaction (b), and distorting
potential {c)used in the ('He, p) and ( H, n) reaction calculations.
('He, p) ('H, n)
(a) Bound state State R (fm) a (fm) V (MeV) V (MeV)

d+p Os 2. 15 0.35 35.20 d+n 35.39

d+ Li Od 2.68 0.47 72.41
d +'Li 1s 2.68 0.47 74.95
p+ He Op 2.42 0.30 63.82 n + Li(T=O) 57. 18
(T=1) 50.63
3He+ 6He 1p 2.55 0.50 103.05 H+ Li(T=O) 96. 18
(T=1) 89.96
('He, p) { H, n)
(b) Interaction R (fm) a (fm) V (MeV) V (MeV)

d+p 2. 15 0.35 35.20 d+n 35.39

p+ Li 2.40 0.46 46.0
p+ He 2.42 0.30 63.82 n + Li(T=O) 57. 18
(T =1) 60.63
p+ He 2.35 0.30 49.5

(c) Distortion Vo (MeV) 8'0 (MeV) R (fm) a (fm) RI (fm) a, (fm)

Initial 131.48 12.61 2.050 0.675 2.237 0.455
Final 57.82 15.63 2. 545 0.625 2. 850 0.330
848 Y. YAMAMOTO, T. KAJINO, AND K.-I. KUBO 47

ldp =0, jdp =1, (7a) be determined from experimental data in the next section.
The potential parameters are given in Table I. The in-
d Li ' jd Li
(7b) teraction potentials Vpd in TsT and V 6HHe in TKQ are the
p
ld7 . =2, (7c) same as those obtained above. The interaction potentials
V &Ll. in TsT and V 3 He in TKQ and the distorting poten-
p p
and, for the knock-on mechanism, tials used for the initial and the Anal scattering are the
lp6He =1 same as those used in Ref. [7].
~
jp6He 2
(8)
He He ' He6He
2. Compound reaction cross section
where lx and j
are the relative orbital and the total an-
It is known [13] that ' B, which is the compound nu-
gular momenta, respectively, defined by
cleus of the Li+ He nuclear system, has three resonance
jdy =ldll Id (9a) states with isospin T = 1 at the energies near the
for Eq. (7) and Li+ He separation threshold. The spin and parity of
the three resonances are 2 (E, =0. 643 MeV), 2+
(9b) (E2=1.01 MeV), and 2 (E3=1.51 MeV), respectively.
The corresponding orbital angular momenta l & are
for Eq. (8). Here Id and I
are the ~pins of d cluster and known [13] experimentally to be 0 for the first and third
particle x, respectively, assuming Id =1 and = —, Prin- I '. resonances, but not known for the second. We assume
cipal quantum numbers for the bound states are obtained the lowest possible value l2 = 1 for this resonance.
by counting the energy quanta in the harmonic oscillator The transition amplitude including both the direct and
model. The radial shapes of the bound-state wave func- Lf L,.
compound processes is obtained by replacing II, ', the
tions are generated using Woods-Saxon potentials, in overlap integrals appearing in the direct transition ex-
which the depth is searched to reproduce each expen- pression (Ref. [12]), with
mental separation energy. Although other particle chan-
nels such as He+ H and He+ He+n with highest spa- (10)
tial symmetry also may describe approximately the
ground states of Li and Be, respectively, these cluster- j
where l, s, and are the orbital, spin, and the total angu-
ing configurations are known to overlap strongly with lar momentum transfers, respectively, and L& and I, are
those adopted in the present study due to an efFect of an- the Anal and initial partial angular momenta, respective-
tisymmetrization. Neglecting these channels is rejected ly. The factor Et„'
Lf L,.
(the compound state formation am-
more or less in the spectroscopic amplitudes (5) and (6) to plitude) is expressed as [14]

EI i
Lf L,.
g (p'pf k'kf )
'i (27rit) i exp[i (o I +o I f )]
J3 J
i
He ~

+I7 ' —j —J
XSI I (
—1)Lf+J [(2J3 +1)(2J +1)(2s+1)(2j+l)(2J+1) ]' 2

l s
X W(I7~ I9B J3H J;JJ),L& I„ .

H H

where p; (p&), k, (k&), and o.I (o.l ) are the reduced SL Li 1S

i f f
mass, wave number, and Coulomb phase shift for the ini-
tial (final) scattering, respectively, and is the spin of the J (13)
compound state. J3He and J
are the projectile channel
spins defined by
where E& and I & are the resonance energy and total
width, respectively. The observed values are given in
3H (12a) Table II. We use these values in the following calcula-
tion. I &L and j. &Lt are the partial widths of final and in-
f
itial channels, respectively. The angular dift'erential
J =LgI (12b) compound-state formation cross section can be expressed
 REACTION MECHANISM OF Li('He, p)'Be &ND. . . 849

TABLE II. The observed resonance parameters for the com- and R, is the channel radius which was taken to be
pound resonance states in ' B above the Li+ He threshold R, =1.4(A I + 22~
fm. In deriving Eq. (15), we used
)
(from Ref. [13]). Cz's are the mixing parameters determined in the following assumptions as usually made.
Sec. II B 2. (1) The initial-state partial width is separated into the
E& (MeV) I z (keV) I& Cz (MeV b) penetration factor PI (E) and an E-independent factor,
where E is the incident energy.
=1
A, 0.643 340 2 0 2. 11X10 '
k=2 2+ (2) The final-state partial width does not depend on the
1.01 600 3. 02 X 10
k=3 1.51 190
(1)
3.09 X 10-' E for a large Q value, i.e., Q = 10.2 MeV, and the partial
waves.
(3) Coulomb phase shifts for the final channel are in-
dependent of E for the same reason as (2).
in terms of the Legendre function for the resonances
A, =1 and 3 as
B. Determination of parameters
from the Li( He, p) Be reaction data
do
=aI„PII(cos8), (14a) 1. Mixing coe+cients ysz, yIro, ax, and P
dA
and for A, =2, We calculate the differential cross section as a sum of
dO
the direct (DWBA) and the compound [Eq. (14)] cross
q2
=azPo(cos8)+PP2(cos0) . (14b)
dA
0.8 I
'
I
'
I
'
I
'
I

az and P contain the geometrical factors and resonance Li( He, p) Be g. s.

parameters. The angular integrated compound cross sec- at 2.5 MeV
tion is expressed as 0.6
Direct
PI (E)C.
cr, x(E) = Knock-on
E (E —E, )'+(r, y2)'
E
0.4

where PI is the penetration factor defined by

0.2
kR,
Pl (E)=
Stripping
FI (E) +GI (E) 0.0
i

(b) Stripping
where F and 6 are the regular and irregular Coulomb Total strlpplng
functions, respectively, k is the incident wave number, 0.3 'P
E
&O
Vp7r i
X Up9Be
0.8 0.2

Li( He, p) Be g. s.
at 2.5 MeV 0. 1
0.6

00 '
I

(c) Knock-on
'
I,
I
'
I

I
'
I
'
I

Total knock-on
0.4— ———Vp3He
— — —
0.8 Vp6He

Up9Be
0.2—
V U9
Compound
0.4
~~
0.0 0.2--
I I I

30 60 90 120 150 180

ec.m. (deg) 0.0
I' i I i I I

0 30 60 90 120 150 180

FIG. 1.
Angular distribution of the differential cross section (deg)
for Li( He, p) Be at E =2. 5 MeV in the laboratory system. Ex-
perimental data are from Ref. [6]. The dot-dashed and the FIG. 2. Decomposition of the calculated direct differential
dashed curves are respectively the calculated direct reaction and cross section for Li('He, p) Be at E =2. 5 MeV into the strip-
compound resonance contributions. Solid curve is the in- ping and knock-on mechanism contributions (a), each interac-
coherent sum of them. tion term in the stripping (b) and knock-on (c) mechanisms.
850 Y. YAMAMOTO, T. KAJINO, AND K.-I. KUBO 47

sections. Namely, we do not make a coherent sum of the the compound resonance contribution is expected to be a
direct and compound amplitudes, since the interference minimum. The obtained y values are given in Table III,
effects have been found to be small for the present reac- and the corresponding angular differential cross section is
tions, as will be shown at the end of this section. We shown in Fig. 1. The obtained values are a=2. 69X 10
determine the mixing coeScients ysT and yK&, and the mb and P=7. 31 X 10 mb. The corresponding com-
coefficients a& and P by fitting the following expression to pound reaction cross section is small at 2. 5 MeV, as we
the experimental data: expected, which is shown in Fig. 1 by the dashed curve.
From the present y -fitting we found that the knock-on
d~(8) do D(8) der, (8) mechanism has a dominant contribution at this energy.
(17a)
dQ dQ dQ This result is shown in Fig. 2(a). We also show the con-
tributions from various interaction terms in the stripping
do. , (8) 3 do ci(8) and knock-on mechanisms in Figs. 2(b) and 2(c), respec-
= aPO ( cos8) + PP2 ( cos8 ), tively. It is noticed that, for both mechanisms, the V-U
dQ ~, dQ term (the double-dot-dashed curve) gives a small change
(17b) for the final differential cross section (compare the solid
curve with the long dashed curve). Although the cross
where a = +3& ia&. section of each V (shown by the dotted curve) and U (the
The experimental differential cross sections of dot-dashed curve) is significantly large, the V-U term de-
Li( He, p) Be are reported in Ref. [6] at the four creases the stripping and increases the knock-on cross
different incident energies: E&,b=2. 5, 2.0, 1.5, and 1.0 section by only about 30% —50%.
MeV. We use the g -fitting method to determine these 2. Coe+cients Cq 's
parameters at the highest incident energy 2. 5 MeV so
that the five parameters y's for the direct reaction cross In this subsection we present the energy dependences
section are determined in an optimum condition where of the calculated cross sections. For the direct reaction

TABLE III. The mixing coefficients y s obtained by the present analysis in Sec. II B 1.
(n, 1,j)) (n, l, j), Mixing coefficient y
( He, p)
Stripping
Projectile Residual
'He(-,'+) =p~(1+) Be( — )
' )d(1+)
='Li( —
(0,0, 1) (1,0, 1) 0.058 92
(0,2, 1) —0.009 49
(0,2, 2) 0.000 25
(0,2, 3) 0.053 95
Knock-on
Target Residual
'I i(-,'-) ='He(O+)g p
'
Be( — ) = '+)
He(0+)'He( —
(0, 1, 2) (1, 1, —) —0. 373 2
( H, n)
Stripping
Projectile Residual
'+) =nd(1+)
H( — Be( — = '
Li( — 1+ )
' ) )(8) d (

(0,0, 1) (1,0, 1) 0.058 92

(0,2, 1) —0.009 49
(0,2, 2) 0.000 25
(0,2, 3) 0.053 95
Knock-on
Target Residual
Li( — )= Li(1+)n 'Be( —,' ) ='Li(1+ )'H( —,'+ )
(0, 1,—,') (1, 1, 2) 0. 138 8
(0, 1, —,' ) ')
(1, 1, — 0.169 5
(0. 1.—,') (1, 1, —) 0. 111 7
')
(0, 1,— ( 1, 1, 2 ) 0.136 4
Li(2 )= Li(0+)n Be( — ) = '+ )
Li(0+ ) (3) 'H( —
2 2
')
(0, 1, — (1, 1, —) —0. 373 2
47 REACTION MECHANISM OF Li('He, p) Be AND. . . 851

components we calculated the cross section at 10
different incident laboratory energies from 0.5 to 2.5
MeV. We use the same spectroscopic amplitudes, y
values obtained above, for all these energies. We use Eq.
(15) for the calculation of the integrated cross section of
the compound reaction components. As mentioned in
Sec. II A 2, we take into account three resonances whose
energies and widths are given in Table II. Therefore, the
unknown parameters are the C& for the angular integrat-
ed cross section [Eq. (15)]. In order to determine C&, we
fitted the angular integrated cross sections
3 Li( He, p) Be reaction by taking account of the Coulomb
0 (E) o D(E)+ X tr cx(E)
=l
A,
to the observed cross sections at 28 different energies by
the g -fitting method, where 28 is the number of observed
data [6] for the energy range 0 E, 2. 0 MeV.
We found that it is difficult to obtain unique parame-
ter set for C& which could reproduce 0 (E) satisfactorily
for the entire energy range 0 & E, 2 MeV. In particu-
lar, a departure of the calculated cross sections from the
observed data has been found not negligibly small at
E, (
0. 5 MeV, as shown in Fig. 3. This could be due
to the fact that, for the present calculations of the direct
W(E, )= Wo —0. 3(E, —3. 15) MeV, (19b)
where Vo and 8'o are those used at E, =3. 15 MeV.
The direct cross section at 0.42 MeV decreases by use of
these strengths only by few percent from the case of E-
independent calculation. This result may imply that
sources other than the distortion effects should be studied
from a more basic point of view.
However, since the present interesting energy region is
-0. 3 MeV for the Li( H, n ) Be reaction, which corre-
to the E, ( He) —1.0 MeV for the
sponds
energy shift, it may not be necessary to take this
discrepancy seriously. The quality of our g -fitting is
fairly good in the relevant energy region E, ( He) =1.0
MeV. The obtained parameters C& are given in Table II.
( ( In Fig. 4, the interference effects between direct and
compound processes are shown for the incident energies
1.0 and 1.5 MeV together with the cases of incoherent
sum. In the calculation of the direct reaction amplitudes
we used the spectroscopic amplitudes determined at 2. 5
0.20
I
' I
'
I

reaction cross sections, we used the energy-fixed distort- 7Li(3He, p) 9Beg,

at 1.0 MeV
ing potentials which were determined at the higher ener- 0. 16—
gy E, =3. 15 MeV [7]. We tested the energy depen-
dence of the potential strengths according to a simple for-
mula 0. 12— nt sum
6

V(E, )= Vz —0. 3(E, —3. 15) MeV, (19a) "a

0.08—
oherent sum

Compound
0.04—
Direct
106
0.00 I
I
.
'
I

I
.
'
I
I

Li( He, p) Beg. s. 7Li(3He, p) 9Beg,

at 1.5 MeV
5
- Direct+ Compound 0.40—

p 0.30

2 (0.643MeV)
++ 2 (1.01MeV) 0.20—
103
Compound
0.10—
2 (1.51MeV) /
000 I I I I ~ I

0 30 60 90 120 150 180

10' I ~, '
I
Oc.m.
0.0 0.5 1.0 2.0
E (MeV)
FIG. 4. Angular distribution of the di6'erential cross section
for Li( He, p) Be at E =1.0 and 1.5 MeV in the laboratory sys-
m

tem. Experimenal data are from Ref. [6]. The dot-dashed and
FIG. 3. Astrophysical S factor for Li( He, p) Be and its dashed curves are the calculated direct and compound reaction
decomposition to the direct and resonance contributions. Ex- cross sections, respectively. In the compound reaction cross
perimental data are from Ref. [6]. The dot-dashed and the sections interference through the two resonances 0.643 (2;
dashed curves are, respectively, the calculated direct reaction MeV, 2+; 1.01 MeV) are taken into consideration. The solid
and compound resonance (2,
2+, and 2 ) contributions. The and dotted curves are the coherent and incoherent sums of the
solid curve is the incoherent sum of them. direct and two compound resonance contributions.
852 Y. YAMAMOTO, T. KAJINO, AND K.-I. KUBO
MeV where the contributions from the compound reac-
tion are small. In the calculation of the compound pro-
cess at these two lower energies, we took into account the
lower two resonances (k= 1 and 2), by assuming that the
product of the partial widths which appears in Eq. (13) is
given by
Here Pt (Z)'s are the penetration factors of Eq. (16) and
G&'s the parameters determined so that each resonance
strength becomes the same as that determined above,
after Eq. (18). The obtained values are Gi =2. 64X10
and Gz =2. 40X 10 . We determined two phase parame-
ters Pi for A, = 1 and 2 by fitting the calculated total cross
sections to observed cross sections by taking into account
interference effects between direct and compound reac-
tion processes in which two resonances are considered
coherently. We get P&= —1. 85 (rad) and P~= — 0. 336
(rad). The result obtained is shown in Fig. 4 by the solid
curves. The dotted curves correspond to the incoherent
sum. The coherent sum case gives a better fit to the angu-
lar distribution data observed, but its overall features are
similar to the cases of incoherent sum. We therefore cal-
culate incoherently the cross sections unless otherwise
mentioned.
The obtained astrophysical S factors are shown in Fig.
3. It is seen from the figure that the direct reaction pro-
cess dominates the cross section in the higher incident en-
ergy region where we determined the spectroscopic am-
plitudes y in Sec. III B 1. This is consistent with the con-
clusion reported by Werby and Edwards [7]. They suc-
ceeded in reproducing the observed data at E, 2. 0
MeV by the direct reaction cross section alone. The
direct and compound reactions, however, give almost the
same contribution in magnitude at the lower energies,
0. 25 &E, & 1.0 MeV, of astrophysical interest. This
fact may cast in doubt use in the present calculation of
those resonance widths which were determined by con-
sidering only the compound mechanism; in particular, for
the 0.643 MeV resonance. Therefore, we reinvestigated
the resonance widths and the phases P& by coherent sum-
ming the direct and the three-compound processes, where
the direct amplitude is calculated in the same way as de-
scribed before. The interference effect has been found to
be small for these energies, too. We get a better fit of the
theoretical S factors in the energy range of 0. 4
~ E, ~ 0. 6 MeV by accepting the smaller widths.
Around 0.8 MeV, however, a dip appears, which makes
the fit to the data worse. Hence, at this stage we cannot
improve the situation in comparison of the calculated S-
factor with the data in this lower energy region.
( Be;j = — , T= ,') =c [( ' —' l
', —, —, l( —,' —,'))
He—(—,
+ g c2 ~
H( —,'+, —,')S Li(1+, 0);j3H6L.
H Li
47
C. The Li( H, n) Be reaction cross section
1. Similarities and differences
of the direct reaction cross section
between Li(He, p) Be and Li(H, n) Be
The transition amplitudes for the direct Li( H, n) Be
reaction process can be expressed similarly to
"Li( He, p) Be by replacing p ~n, He — + H, and
(20) He~ Li in Eqs. (1)—(4). The nuclear-potential parame-
ters needed for the calculations of the bound-state wave
functions are the same as those used for the ('He, p) reac-
tion, except for the depths, which are determined to
reproduce the observed separation energy for each nu-
clear system of H, Li, and Be. The transition poten-
tials V„d and V 6„i are thus obtained, while V 7Li and
Vn 3H are taken to be equal to V 7L. and V 3H used in the
H P Ll p He
( He, p) reaction, respectively. The nuclear distorting po-
tentials for initial and final scattering are the same as
those used for the ( He, p) reaction. They are given in
Table I.
Stripping in ( H, n). The bound states which appear in
the transition amplitudes for the stripping mechanism are
Be=d(3 Li and H=d(en. The Be bound state is com-
mon to the two reactions ( He, p) and ( H, n). Since the
He=dip and H=dn nuclear systems are mirror con-
jugate to each other, the angular momentum quantum
numbers associated with the relative wave functions are
the same [see Eq. (7a)]. We use the same spectroscopic
amplitudes, the y values, for the ( H, n) stripping mecha-
nism, which are obtained for the Li( He, p) Be stripping
mechanism and given in Table III.
Knock on in ( H, -n). For the knock-on mechanism,
however, these similarities break down because the bound
state Be= H Li, which appears in the ( H, n) reaction,
) is not mirror conjugate to Be= He183 He in the ( He, p)
reaction. One must take account of the Li*(E =3. 56
MeV; j
=0+, T =1) excited state, which is a mirror
partner of the He ground state. We therefore take the
following states for the ( H, n) reaction:
n Li ' n Li
— (21)
1 3
3H6Li 7 J 3H6Li 2 7
l . ~=1 J
— (22)
3
I3H6Li+ 7
H Li+
which are to be compared with Eq. (8).
This difference arises from the fact that both states
J = 1+ with T =0 and =0+ ith T = 1 of Li are al-
J
most energetically degenerate and mixed equally in the
ground state of Be and Li, as indicated in the shell-
model calculations [15,16]. The wave functions to be
used, therefore, are
'+
—
')I8 He(0+ 1))+( ' —, —,
'
10) —,' —,')~ H( —,'+ —
') Li*(0+, 1)) ]
H Ll
)+ (23)
47 REACTION MECHANISM OF Li( He, p) Be AND. . . 853

, T= ,') —=d [( —, —, 11~ —, —,

' —'
~ Li;j = —
',
' ')~p He(0+, 1))+(—,' —,' 10~ —,' ') ns Li*(0+, 1))] —,

+ g d~ ~n Li(1+,0);j 6 )+ . (24)
n Li

where c; and d; are the coefficients of fractional paren- eters are not reported. We therefore make the following
tage and ( ) are the isospin Clebsch-Gordan coefficients.
~
two assumptions.
These mixing parameters are expressed more convenient- First, the resonance energy E& is shifted by 0.4725
ly in terms of the spectroscopic amplitudes S' which MeV to the lower energy from that of the mirror state of
are used in the study of nucleon transfer reactions. For
the Be nucleus, these amplitudes are
'
B(18.43 MeV, 2, T= 1), measured from the thresh-
old. This assumption is justified by considering the mir-
S' ( — ''0+ 1 (1 —
' — '—
') — ') =(')' c, =0.2858 ror symmetry among T=1 triplet states of the 3 =10
2~
2 ~
2 2 2
(25a) nuclear systems. Rath et al. [6] also adopted the same
' —
S' '( — ') —
';1+ 0, (1 — ')=(')' 'c. . =0. 1498
' —
. (25b) approximation in their analysis. This shift energy, 0.4725
MeV, is from the mirror partners of the second T =1
' ';1+ 0, (1 ') ' ')=(')'
S' '( — —, 3
'c 2 1/2 =0. 1862,
—, —, —, (25c) states above the Li+( A =3) separation threshold. Even
2 2 2
though we take the shift energy from the mirror partners
and, for the Li nucleus, of the third T = 1 states, the result does not change very
S'~ ( — ''0+
' — 1 ' —
') —
(1 — ')=i/3d, = —0. 9425, (26a)
much.
More important is the width parameter I, (' Be). If
(26b) the channel width for Li+ H predominates the total

S ( ' 1+0 (1 —) ——) =&3d2 =0. 6567 (26c)

iy2
In these equations S'~ (j T;j, T„(ls)jt) is the spectro-
scopic amplitude, j
and T are the spin and isospin of Be
(or Li), and T, are those of the core A = 6 nuclear
j,
systems, and 3, s, j, and t are the orbital, intrinsic, and to-
tal spin and isospin of the A =3 (or the nucleon) nuclear
systems in question, respectively. In the present studies
we used the S values taken from Refs. [15] and [16], as
given in Eqs. (25a) —(26c). Since the absolute strengths of
c, and d& are even larger than those of c2 and dz, re-
spectively, the contribution of the excited state of
Li*(3.56 MeV, 0+, T= 1) is not ignored.
One of the transition amplitudes of ( H, n) knock-on
mechanism corresponds to that of ( He, p) reaction
through mirror conjugation, which is shown in the last
lines of Table III for the ( He, p) and ( H, n) reactions.
Therefore, we use the same spectroscopic amplitude
(
—0. 3732) for the ( H, n) knock-on mechanism. The
theoretical spectroscopic amplitude for this mirror conju-
gate state transition is — 0. 2694, which is obtained as the
product of values given in Eqs. (25a) and (26a). This
means that we use the product of spectroscopic ampli-
tudes enhanced by factor of 1.386 from the theoretical
value. We employ the same enhancement factor for the
other four knock-on transitions, and they are given in
Table III.
2. Resonance contribution to Li( H, n) Be
In the calculation of the resonance term, Eq. (15), we
use the observed [13] total widths (I &) and resonance en-
ergies (Ez) for the two T=1 excited states above the
Li+ H threshold which are given in Table IV for k=2
and 3. Another T =1 state of ' Be(k= 1), which is
theoretically expected to lie very close to the threshold
energy, has not been observed, and the resonance param-
width I,(' Be) in question, one can use the theoretical es-
timate
I, ( Li+ H)=(3A' /p)R P (E)8
of this channel to approximate F'&. Unfortunately, how-
ever, this is not the case. The Be+n, Be+2n, and
He+ He channels are open far below the Li+ H
threshold and, as we study here the Li( H, n) Be reac-
tion, neutron decays from the two (A, =2 and 3) T = 1 res-
onances are observed experimentally [13]. In addition,
for the Li+ He nuclear system, the observed total
width I i(' B) for the nearest threshold resonance at
0.643 MeV is larger than I 3(' B) for the resonance at
higher energy 1.51 MeV, which is not easily explained
due to dominance of the partial width for the Li+ He
channel, which has the same l & = 1 orbital angular
momentum.
In order to estimate I i( Be) we secondly assume there-
fore that the ratio of the widths between ' Be and ' B,
R =I,(' Be)/I, (' B),
is the same as the one measured for the other correspond-
ing mirror states (A, =2 and 3). The total width for B is
'
known [13] to be I i(' B) =340 keV. When the ratio
R =12(' Be)/I"2(' B)(=0.183)
is used, one gets
I i(' Be) =R I i(' B) =60 keV .
Another value I,
(' Be) =630 keV comes out alternative-
ly when one uses R =I 3(' Be)/1 3(' B)(=1.84); see the
resonance parameters listed in Table IV. These values
give nearly a hundred times different S factors from each
other at the on-resonance energy E =E, by using Eq.
(15). Although the uncertainty is this large for I,
(' Be),
854 Y. YAMAMOTO, T. KAJINO, AND K.-I. KUBO 47

TABLE IV. The parameter values of the resonance terms in bution from the direct reaction process and the three res-
S factor for the Li( H, n) Be reaction. From Ref.
astrophysical onant processes is also shown in this figure. Two dot-
[13]. dashed curves are calculated by using the two different I t
E, (MeV) I z (MeV) values explained in Sec. II C 2.
The astrophysical S factor is dominated by the two res-
0 17' 0.06b
0.63'
onant contributions at the low energies E, (1. 0 MeV.
Gamow window energy of the Li( H, n) Be reaction is
A, =2 0.54 0. 11 250 keV, corresponding to T9=T/10 =0. 8 which is a
A, =3 1.30 0.35 typical temperature in primordial nucleosynthesis. At
'Assumed resonance energy of the Li+'H nuclear system shift- this energy the calculated S factor is strongly subject to
ed by hE =0.473 MeV from the E1=0.643 MeV in Li+ He the unknown resonance parameters of the nearest thresh-
system, which is the same shift energy as for k=2 because E1 old T =1 state and the true astrophysical S factor is ex-
for the Li+ H system is unmeasured. pected to have a value between the two extreme curves
The resonance width obtained by assuming that (shaded area in Fig. 5) explained above. The two experi-
I 1( Be)/I 1( B) = I 2( Be)/I ( B). mental data are in reasonable agreement with this shaded
'The resonance width obtained by assuming that area at the relevant energies E, ~300 keV of astro-
I 1(' Be)/I 1(' B) = I 3(' Be)/I 3{' B). See text for detail. physical interest.
One important aspect of the direct reaction process
should be pointed out, as follows. Although the second
it is fair to take these two values for the following Be T =1 state describes rather well the total yield of the ob-
abundance calculations. served S factor at E, =500 keV, very smooth energy
It is noted that an extra factor of 2.0 should be multi- variation at the off-resonance energies is not explained by
plied by Eq. (15) to estimate the resonance S factors of this single resonance alone. We take account of only
the Li( H, n) Be reaction, which comes from an isospin three resonances for the Li( H, n ) Be reaction. There
Clebsch-Gordan coefBcient. may be a fourth resonance which is a mirror partner of
3. Astrophysical Sfactor for Ii( &,n) Be
the 20. 1 MeV (J =
ed to lie near E, —
1, T =1) state of ' B and is expect-
2 MeV above the Li+ H separa-
The calculated astrophysical S factor for the tion threshold [13]. Although the effects of this reso-
Li( H, n ) Be reaction is displayed in Fig. 5. Each contri- nance on the inverse reaction cross section have been ob-
served experimentally [17,18], it may not affect much the
astrophysical S factor at the lower energies E, ~1
MeV. Significant contribution form the direct reaction
process may be needed. Our theoretical calculation based
Li( H, n) Be
on the ( He, p) calculation underestimates the observed S
factor [10,11]. This may arise from the lack of our
knowledge as to whether or not we could simply extend
the same calculation to the ( H, n) reaction from the
i04:—
( He, p) calculation.
We briefly remark here that the calculated direct reac-
tion cross section for Li( H, n) Be is also predominated
by the knock-on mechanism similar to the Li( He, p) Be
reaction. There is a difference, however, that one third of
the cross section in the ( H, n) reaction was found in our
~0. 17 Mev) '~~ ~ 2 (0.54 MeV)
calculation to arise from the T=1 excited state of Li.
This is what we expected from the discussion after Eq.
4~ (26) of Sec. II C l.
2 (1.30 MeV)
We show in Fig. 6 another theoretical result where the
S factor from the direct reaction contribution is
I,
0.5
~ I

1.0
Ec m (MeV)
FICx. 5. Calculated astrophysical S factor for Li('H, n) Be
and its decomposition into direct and resonance contributions.
The dotted curve is the calculated direct reaction contribution.
The dashed curves are two resonance [2+(0.54 MeV) and
2 (1.30 MeV)] contributions and the two dot-dashed curves
correspond to the resonance [2 (0. 17 MeV)] with widths of
I =60 keV {upper) and
& I,
=630 keV (lower), respectively. The
solid curves are the sum of direct and compound processes.
Data are taken from Refs. [10] (CI) aud [11] ( ).
artificially multiplied by a factor of 5 so that the agree-
ment between theory and observation [10,11] is better
than that shown in Fig. 5. Resonance terms are not
changed here. This aims to demonstrate that the astro-
physical S factor at the Gamow window energy -250
keV may not be changed very much by changing the
direct contribution, since a dominant contribution comes
from the nearest threshold resonance. If the resonance
parameters of this state of ' Be are measured in a direct
or indirect method, the contribution from this resonance
may be clarified more quantitatively.
We point out a discrepancy between the two different
~ ( H, n) experimental data [10,11]. Although the two data
47 REACTION MECHANISM OF Li('He, p) Be AND. .. 855

106 zones to the baryon-number density in low density zones,

Li( H, n) Bes,
f
and z is the volume fraction of high-density zones at the
end of the cosmological QCD phase transition. In this
model, as a remnant of first-order QCD phase transition
[29] followed by neutron diff'usion [23], protons are al-
lowed to distribute inhomogeneously in the spatial
10':— configuration described by R and v, while neutrons dis-
tribute homogeneously.
f
Direct A. Standard model versus inhomogeneous model

We show in Figs. 7 —9 the calculated Be abundance as

2 (0.17 Mev) a function of the unknown parameter g=nB/n~, the ra-
tio of the number of baryons to the number of photons in
NN+
the present universe. Figures 7 and 8 correspond respec-
10 tively to the calculated reaction rates for Li( H, n) Be
2 (1.30 Mev)
shown in Figs. 5 and 6, and Fig. 9 to the measured reac-
tion cross section [10]. The g value can be related to the
100 I

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 average mass density parameter of baryons as

E, rn (MeV) As=8. 3X10 g(T/2. 9) /pc,
FIG. 6. Calculated astrophysical S factor for Li('H, n) Be. where T is the temperature of the microwave background
The S factor from the direct reaction contribution is artificially radiation, pc=3Ho /8nGis the. critical density to close
multiplied by a factor of 5. The dashed and dot-dashed curves the universe, and Ho is the Hubble constant, which is as-
are the same as those in Fig. 5.
10-10

sets are in good agreement at the low energies E, (500

keV, they clearly deviate from each other as the energy
increases. The difference between the two reaches a factor 10 '2 Be —OBS.
of 2 at E, =1 MeV (see Fig. 5). This is very curious be- Gilmore et al. Ryan et al

cause the cross section for charged particle reactions is

larger at higher energies and the measurement should be
easier there. If the energy calibration in either experi- 1 /1-
lU
ment was not so accurate as to change the S factors, error : «:j: I ', ';"," ""I"".:::":"' ":' '

bars at lower energies could be even larger, since the INHOMOGENEOUE

correction from the Coulomb penetration factor,
'U), is progressively larger as the ener- 10-16
exp( 2vrZ&Z2e /A— V

gy becomes lower. Another independent and high pre-

cision measurement of the cross section is desirable in or-
der to find the reason for this discrepancy.
10-1s
E
III. PRIMORDIAL NUCLEOSYNTHESIS OF Be z
We used Wagoner's code [19,20], with the reaction net-
work updated [21,22], for the primordial nucleosynthesis 10-2o
STANDARD
calculations in the standard big-bang model. This model QI3 = 0.04
assumes homogeneous baryon-number density distribu-
tion as the initial condition for primordial nucleosyn-
thesis. Three light neutrino species, N =3, and a neu- 10 22
10-8
tron lifetime ~„=896 sec were used. Universal baryon- 10-10 10-9

number density nB is another unknown parameter. q=n Jn,

For the inhomogeneous model [23 —25] we took the
method developed by Alcock, Fuller, and Mathews [24]
of the two-phase separation scenario. Although this
method is a simplified version of multizone models
[26 —28], this still works reasonably well for relatively
strong baryon inhomogeneities [22,27]. There are two
additional parameters R and fz in order to describe the
inhomogeneous baryon-number density distribution. R is
the ratio of the baryon-number density in high-density
FIG. 7. g dependence of the calculated number abundance of
Be in the standard and inhornogeneous nucleosynthesis models.
Observed Be abundance is from Refs. [1] and [2]. The inhomo-
geneous model value is averaged over the proton-rich and
neutron-rich zones, adopting the typical inhomogeneous param-
eters R =1000 and f~=0. 1. The two solid curves in each nu-
cleosynthesis model correspond to the two S factors obtained
theoretically and shown in Fig. 5 by the two solid curves.
856 Y. YAMAMOTO, T. KAJINO, AND K.-I. KUBO 47

sumed to be 50 (km/sec)/Mpc in the present calculation.
The values 0~=1 and Q&=0. 04 are therefore equivalent
to g=7X10 and 3 X 10 ',
respectively. Recent care-
ful analysis [30] of the primordial abundance of He has
inferred a very small value, Y =0. 22+0. 01 by mass, and
severely constrains QB, any single value of QB is unlikely
to explain the observed primordial abundances of H,
He, and Li, as well as He in the standard homogeneous
model. Although this may be a serious problem for the
standard model, we use QB=0. 04 just for reference in or-
der to show that a dilute universe in baryons has been
favored by the standard model [19,20]. In the inhomo-
geneous model calculations we adopted a single set of
typical configuration parameters R =10 and &=0. 1.
Parameter dependence of the Be abundance will be dis-
f fore, the calculated Be abundance scales almost linearly
cussed later.
It is first pointed out that the inhomogeneous model
predicts systematically larger Be abundance than the
standard model does for any value of g, although the
theoretical error bars are large, as shown in Figs. 7 and 8,
due to an ambiguous Li( H, n) Be rate.
Sensitivity to the Li( H, n) Be reaction rate is clearly
seen in these figures. The Be abundance depends on this
rate only in a dilute (QB &0. 5) universe of the standard
homogeneous model. This is because both nuclear fuels
H and Li are created abundantly in a dilute homogene-
ous universe. In a dense 0. 5 & AB universe, on the
other hand, Li is created secondarily by
He( He, y ) Be(e, v) Li long after the epoch of primor-
dial nucleosynthesis because Be has a life of 53 days.
Since H also is not very abundant, the Be abundance is
independent of the Li( H, n) Be reaction rate. Instead of
the ( H, n) process, the Li( He, p) Be reaction is found to
create most of the Be in a dense homogeneous universe
at a less significant level.
In the inhomogeneous model the Be abundance de-
pends strongly on the Li( H, n) Be reaction rate for any
g value, showing that Be is mostly created in neutron-
rich zones where both H and Li are abundant. There-
to the Li( H, n) Be rate.
After the benchmark paper by Alcock, Fuller, and
Mathews [24] the inhomogeneous model was improved
by taking account of two hydrodynamic effects, i.e. , the
neutron back-diffusion (NBD) [25,26 —28] and the homo-
genization of high-density zones (HHD) [31]. The NBD
effect is important in the models for rather smaller
R & 100 (but, of course, 1 &R). The HHD effect is more
)
important for larger R 10, whose values are realistical-
ly known from the QCD studies of cosmological phase
transitions [32,33]. These effects tend to make the Be
abundance smaller. Since the present nucleosynthesis

1 p-10

10-»

-12
Be - OBS.
Gilmore et al. Ryan et al
1p-12 Be - OBS.
Gilmore et al. Ryan et al.

1p-14

10 14
1r
INHOMOGENEOUS INHOMOGENEOUS
z
10-"
z
8 10"
cj
C
10-"
2
z 10 18
z
10-2o
STANDARD
QB= 0.04 QB= 1 10-»—
STANDARD
Q B= 0.04 QB —1
1
0-22

1 p-10 10-' 10-8

1 P-22

q=n Jn, 1 p-lo 10-9

FIG. 8. g dependence of the calculated number abundance of
Be in the standard and inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis models.
The two solid curves in each nucleosynthesis model correspond
to the two S factors obtained theoretically and shown in Fig. 5
by the two solid curves.
q=n Jn,
FIG. 9. g dependence of the calculated number abundance of
Be in the standard and inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis models.
The two solid curves are calculated using the experimentally ob-
served S factor of the Li( H, n) Be reaction [10].
47 REACTION MECHANISM OF Li('He, p) Be AND. . . 857

calculations do not include these possibly important
effects, the calculated result here is taken to be an upper
limit.
Figures 7 and 8 show essentially no difference from
each other. Although the direct Li( H, n) Be reaction
cross sections used in these calculations differ from each
other by a factor of 5, only the lower bounds of the Be
abundance change by a factor of 2 or less. This indicates
that the contribution from the direct reaction process
does not affect the primordial abundance of Be very
much. The large error bars of the calculated abundance
still arise from the ambiguous resonance parameters of
the near threshold T =1 state. The calculated abundance
curves in Fig. 9 are intermediate between those shown in
Figs. 7 and 8.
B. Comparison with the observed abundance
The inhomogeneous model is sometimes criticized as
having too many parameters variable, namely R and fz,
in addition to AB, N, and ~„. Although there are a few
theoretical studies [32,33] that predict the spatial
10-8
INHOMOGENEOUS
]p-10
configuration of baryon inhomogeneity from QCD, these
cosmological parameters have not yet been determined
theoretically. Let us discuss here a complementary
method which may provide another independent way to
constrain the parameters R and v through a comparison
of the calculated abundance of Be with observed data.
f
The parameter dependence of the primordial Be abun-
dance has already been calculated [4,5] by using the as-
sumed reaction rate for Li( H, n) Be, which turns out to
be at least four times too large. It is therefore worthwhile
revising it here by using better theoretical reaction rates
or the observed one.
Figures 10 and 11 show the R- and i, -dependence of
the calculated Be abundance for fixed g = 3 X 10
f
(QB-0.04) and 7. 53 X 10 (Qtl-1) in the inhomogene-
ous model. The solid and two dashed curves represent
of Be the calculated results by using the measured and theoreti-
cal reaction rates shown in Fig. 5, respectively. The
abundance depends strongly on R, though weakly on fl„
and there is a plateau of high Be abundance for larger R,
f
which satisfies R l, ~ 20QB, as was found previously
[4,5]. A high value of the Be abundance in the plateau is
shown in Figs. 7 —9 as an upper limit of a typical inhomo-
geneous model value. The Be abundance decreases
monotonically as R becomes small, and in the limit of
R =1 it becomes the standard-model value. The error

Q 1 0-12 Gilmore et al. 10-1o

0
(a)
1 0-14
6 INHOMOGENEOUS
tQ Ryan e - 1 R=1000
QB—
bQ
c5 1 p-16 QB —— 1 10-12
tQ
O
fv= 0.1
STANDARD 2
1 p-18

2
10-14
i 0-20 Gilmore et el.
Ryan et al.
INHOMOGENEOUS
i 0-10

-12 10 '6
Gilmore et al.
(b)
1 0-14— INHOMOGENEOUS

QB = 0.04 R = 1000
1 0-12
10-16— QB —0.04 0
f„=0. 1
t ()18
STANDARD

10-2o Gilmore et al.

10' 1 102 103 104 Ryan et al.

Density contrast R

1 p-16 I

FIG. 10. R dependence of the calculated mass fraction of 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Be, averaged over the proton-rich and neutron-rich zones, in Volume fraction fv
the inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis model. Top: AB=1.0 and
fv=0. 1. Bottom: Qa=0. 04 and fv=0. 1. Standard model FICr. 11. ft dependence of the calculated mass fraction of
value is the limit R =1. The solid curve corresponds to the ex- Be, averaged over the proton-rich and neutron-rich zones, in
perimentally observed S factor and two dashed curves corre- 'the inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis model. Top: QB=1.0 and
spond to the theoretically calculated S factors shown in Fig. 5 R =10 . Bottom: QB=0.04 and R =10'. Curves correspond
by the two solid curves. to those in Fig. 10.
858 Y. YAMAMOTO, T. KAJINO, AND K.-I. KUBO
bar arising from uncertainty of the nuclear reaction rate
is smaller than the difference between the standard model
value and the upper limit of the inhomogeneous model
value (Figs. 7, 8, 10, and 11).
Let us now compare these theoretical results with ob-
served data in Figs. 7 —11. The lowest detected value of
the Be abundance for halo dwarfs is
ln[N( Be)/X(H)]= —12. 8+0. 3 [1] and —13.25+0. 4 [2]
for HD140283 with metallicity [Fe/H]= — 2. 7. A recent
extensive search [34] for Be in halo dwarfs has indicated
that the lowest abundance shown above does not reach
plateau yet and hence these values are still taken to be an
upper limit of the primordial abundance. However, as
discussed by Gilmore et al. [34], we cannot exclude the
possibility that 50%%uo of the observed Be in the most
metal-poor dwarfs observed so far might have been pro-
duced in some primordial process like inhomogeneous big
bang [3—5]. Therefore, the observed upper limits
displayed in Figs. 7 —11 provides an important measure
showing a possible level of primordial Be abundance.
The observed abundances of Be are approaching our
theoretical upper limit predicted from the inhomogene-
ous model but are still larger by at least two orders of
magnitude than that of the standard model for 10
This may raise a hope of constraining the cosmological
parameters g, R, and f~, and even distinguishing the
cosmological models for primordial nucleosynthesis. If
the primordial abundance of Be is close to an upper limit
observed, a large fl~ value ( ~ 0. 04) may be possible from
Figs. 7 —9, only large density contrast R 100 is more
probable from Fig. 10, and volume fraction of high-
f
density zones t, is unlikely to be near unity from Fig. 11.
However, the theoretical error bar arising from uncer-
tainty in the input nuclear reaction rate, as shown by
hatched area in Figs. 7 —11, is still too large to constrain
these parameters precisely even in the specific model we
adopted here. It also relaxes the constraint that the
theoretical abundance of Be may decrease due to several
hydrodynamic effects which have not been included in
the present calculation. We should keep minimizing the
uncertainty of the input nuclear reaction data and the
model of nucleosynthesis for better theoretical prediction
of primordial Be abundance.
IV. CONCLUSION
We have studied the two reactions, Li( He, p) Be and
Li( H, n) Be, at low energies E, (2
MeV. Assuming
that similar dynamics work for the two reactions and tak-
ing account of the differences which arise from the
[1] G. Gilmore, B. Edvardsson, and P. E. Nissen, Astrophys.
J. 378, 17 (1991).
[2] S. G. Ryan, J. E. Norris, M. S. Bessell, and C. P. Deli-
yannis, Astrophys. J. 388, 184 (1992).
[3] R. N. Boyd and T. Kajino, Astrophys. J. 336, L55 {1989).
[4] R. A. Malaney and W. A. Fowler, Astrophys. J. 345, L5
(1989).
[5] T. Kajino and R. N. Boyd, Astrophys. J. 359, 267 (1990).
[6] D. P. Rath, R. N. Boyd, H. J. Hausman, M. S. Islam, and
47
different isospin contribution and Coulomb interaction,
we estimated the nuclear reaction cross sections for
Li( H, n) Be using all detailed information of the
Li( He, p) Be reaction. The direct reaction cross section
for Li( H, n) Be thus calculated is about 5 times smaller
than those measured recently. We tested energy depen-
dence of the optical potential depths by assuming a sim-
ple E dependence. This changes, however, the cross sec-
tions only by few percent. We have then to seek for other
reasons for these smaller cross sections.
In spite of these problems, we found that the cross sec-
tion at the Gamow window energy E-250 keV for pri-
mordial nucleosynthesis is almost independent of the
direct reaction process, since the direct reaction contribu-
tion is much smaller than the resonance contribution at
this energy. Recently, two measurements of the
Li( H, n) Be cross section at Gamow energy were re-
ported. Although these two are in reasonable agreement
with each other, it appears certain from our present anal-
yses that the cross section is strongly affected by the
near-threshold resonance whose resonance parameter are
not at all determined in either experiment.
The primordial abundance of Be calculated by using
the Li( H, n) Be reaction rate assuming I &=60 and 630
keV for the first resonance width of ' Be is found to over-
lap with one of the two recently observed upper limits of
astronomical data in halo dwarfs if we accept the inho-
mogeneous model. We also calculated the Be abundance
using the observed cross sections. It is then confirmed
that the abundance calculated by the inhomogeneous
model is still larger than that by the standard model and
approaches the observed upper limit. If an extensive as-
tronomical observation finds a plateau of the Be abun-
dance in halo dwarfs, showing primordial abundance, nu-
clear physics will play a critical role in testing the cosmo-
logical theories for primordial nucleosynthesis.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge R. N. Boyd for many helpful
discussions on the nuclear reaction data of Li( He, p) Be
and F. C. Barker for his invaluable comments on
Coulomb displacement energies and mirror symmetry in
light nuclei. They also thank P. Hodgson for useful dis-
cussion on the direct reaction mechanism at low energies.
This work has been performed under the auspices of Min-
istry of Education, Science and Culture, Contract Nos.
03740152 and 01540253 and also partially supported by
JSPS-NSF Grant No. EPAR071-8815999 of the Japan-
U. S. Joint Research Project.
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