Background: 34 Na is conjectured to play an important role in the production of seed nuclei in the alternate r -process paths involving light neutron rich nuclei very near the β-stability line, and as such, it is important to know its ground state properties and structure to calculate rates of the reactions it might be involved in, in the stellar plasma. Found in the region of 'island of inversion', its ground state might not be in agreement with normal shell model predictions.Purpose: The aim of this paper is to study the elastic Coulomb breakup of 34 Na on 208 Pb to give us a core of 33 Na with a neutron and in the process we try and investigate the one neutron separation energy and the ground state configuration of 34 Na.Method: A fully quantum mechanical Coulomb breakup theory within the architecture of post-form finite range distorted wave Born approximation extended to include the effects of deformation is used to research the elastic Coulomb breakup of 34 Na on 208 Pb at 100 MeV/u. The triple differential cross-section calculated for the breakup is integrated over the desired components to find the total cross-section, momentum and angular distributions as well as the average momenta, along with the energy-angular distributions.Results: The total one neutron removal cross-section is calculated to test the possible ground state configurations of 34 Na. The average momentum results along with energy-angular calculations indicate 34 Na to have a halo structure. The parallel momentum distributions with narrow full widths at half maxima signify the same.
Conclusion:We have attempted to analyse the possible ground state configurations of 34 Na and in congruity with the patterns in the 'island of inversion' conclude that even without deformation, 34 Na should be a neutron halo with a predominant contribution to its ground state most probably coming from 33 Na(3/2 + ) ⊗ 2p 3/2 ν configuration. We also surmise that it would certainly be useful and rewarding to test our predictions with an experiment to put stricter limits on its ground state configuration and binding energy. * gagandph@iitr.ac.in