The interaction of an E/A=57.6-MeV 17 Ne beam with a Be target was used to populate levels in 16 Ne following neutron knockout reactions. The decay of 16 Ne states into the three-body 14 O+p+p continuum was observed in the High Resolution Array (HiRA). For the first time for a 2p emitter, correlations between the momenta of the three decay products were measured with sufficient resolution and statistics to allow for an unambiguous demonstration of their dependence on the long-range nature of the Coulomb interaction. Contrary to previous measurements, our measured limit Γ < 80 keV for the intrinsic decay width of the ground state is not in contradiction with the small values (of the order of keV) predicted theoretically.PACS numbers: 25.10.+s, 23.50.+z, 21.60.Gx, 27.20.+n Introduction -Two-proton (2p) radioactivity [1] is the most recently discovered type of radioactive decay. It is a facet of a broader three-body decay phenomenon actively investigated within the last decade [2]. In binary decay, the correlations between the momenta of the two decay products are entirely constrained by energy and momentum conservation. In contrast for three-body decay, the corresponding correlations are also sensitive to the internal nuclear structure of the decaying system and the decay dynamics providing, in principle, another way to constrain this information from experiment. In 2p decay, as the separation between the decay products becomes greater than the range of the nuclear interaction, the subsequent modification of the initial correlations is determined solely by the Coulomb interaction between the decay products. As the range of the Coulomb force is infinite, its long-range contribution to the correlations can be substantial, especially, in heavy 2p emitters.

Neutron transfer reactions with fast secondary beams of 17 Ne, 15 O, and 9 C have been studied with the HiRA and CAESAR arrays. Excited states of 18 Ne, 16 O, and 10 C in the continuum have been identified using invariant-mass spectroscopy. The best experimental resolution of these states is achieved by selecting events where the decay fragments are emitted transverse to the beam direction. We have confirmed a number of spin assignments made in previous works for the negative-parity states of 18 Ne. In addition we have found new higher-lying excited states in 16 O and 18 Ne, some of which fission into two ground-state 8 Be fragments. Finally for 10 C, a new excited state was observed. These transfer reactions were found to leave the remnant of the 9 Be target nuclei at very high excitation energies and maybe associated with the pickup of a deeply-bound 9 Be neutron.

An upper limit to the mass of the 3-proton unbound nucleus 17 Na was measured to be ∆M ≤ 34.72 (6) MeV. The excitation energies, widths and decay modes for one-and two-proton decaying states of 8 B, 9 B, 9 C, 16 F, and 17 Ne were also measured. The energy-angular decay correlations in the 2p decay of 17 Ne are presented.