Recent insight into the mechanism of proton-induced composite particle emission in inclusive reactions

Recent results for the inclusive reaction 93Nb(p,α) between incident energies of 65 and 160 MeV are shown to be consistent with a competition between knockout and pickup. The pre-equilibrium statistical multistep process terminates in either mechanism. The incident-energy dependence of the reaction reflects the dynamics of the participating reaction components. It is consequently not surprising to observe knockout to dominate at the lower and highest incident energies, with pickup very prominent in between.