Structure and Coulomb dissociation of 23O within the quark–meson coupling model

We study the ground state structure of nuclei in the vicinity of the one-neutron drip line within the latest version of the quark–meson coupling (QMC) model with a particular emphasis on 23O. For this nucleus the model predicts a image configuration for its ground state, with a one-neutron separation energy in close agreement with the corresponding experimental value. The wave function describing the valence neutron-core relative motion was then used to calculate the Coulomb dissociation of 23O on a lead target at a beam energy of image. The experimental neutron-core relative energy spectrum and the total one-neutron removal cross sections are well described by the calculations. The widths of the longitudinal momentum distributions of the 22O fragment are found to be broad, which do not support the formation of a neutron halo in this nucleus.