Missing monopole strength of the Hoyle state in the inelastic α+12C scattering

Analyses of the inelastic α+12C scattering at medium energies have indicated that the strength of the Hoyle state (the isoscalar 02+ excitation at 7.65 MeV in 12C) seems to exhaust only 7–9% of the monopole energy weighted sum rule (EWSR), compared to about 15% of the EWSR extracted from inelastic electron scattering data. The full monopole transition strength predicted by realistic microscopic α-cluster models of the Hoyle state can be shown to exhaust up to 22% of the EWSR. To explore the missing monopole strength in the inelastic α+12C scattering, we have performed a fully microscopic folding model analysis of the inelastic α+12C scattering at Elab=104–240 MeVElab=104–240 MeV using the 3-α resonating group wave function of the Hoyle state obtained by Kamimura, and a complex density-dependent M3Y interaction newly parametrized based on the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock results for nuclear matter. Our folding model analysis has shown consistently that the missing monopole strength of the Hoyle state is not associated with the uncertainties in the analysis of the α+12C scattering, but is most likely due to the short lifetime and weakly bound structure of this state which significantly enhances absorption in the exit α+C∗12(02+) channel.