Neutron halo in heavy nuclei from antiproton absorption

A new method to study the nuclear periphery using antiproton annihilation was applied to nine isotopes with mass numbers between 58 and 238. The method makes use of the detection of the radioactive annihilation products one unit lower in mass number than the target. A clear neutron halo effect, strongly correlated with the neutron binding energy, was observed in some nuclei. The experimental results are in qualitative agreement with calculations of proton and neutron densities at the nuclear periphery based on either a simple asymptotic density model or a more complex Hartree-Fock approach.