Three-body correlations in direct reactions: Example of Be 6 populated in the (p,n) reaction

The Be-6 continuum states were populated in the charge-exchange reaction H-1(Li-6,Be-6)n collecting very high statistics data (similar to 5 x 10(6) events) on the three-body alpha+ p +p correlations. The Be-6 excitation energy region below similar to 3 MeV is considered, where the data are dominated by contributions from the 0(+) and 2(+) states. It is demonstrated how the high-statistics few-body correlation data can be used to extract detailed information on the reaction mechanism. Such a derivation is based on the fact that highly spin-aligned states are typically populated in the direct reactions.