Anatomy of three-body decay III. Energy distributions

Abstract We address the problem of calculating momentum distributions of particles emerging from the three-body decay of a many-body resonance. We show that these distributions are determined by the asymptotics of the coordinate-space complex-energy wave-function of the resonance. We use the hyperspherical adiabatic expansion method where all lengths are proportional to the hyperradius. The structures of the resonances are related to different decay mechanisms. For direct decay all inter-particle distances increase proportional to the hyperradius at intermediate and large distances. Sequential three-body decay proceeds via spatially confined quasi-stationary two-body configurations. Then two particles remain close while the third moves away. The wave function may contain mixtures which produce coherence effects at small distances, but the energy distributions can still be added incoherently. Two-neutron halos are discussed in details and illustrated by the 2 + resonance in 6He. The dynamic evolution of the decay process is discussed.