De-excitations of highly excited ${}^{11}$B${}^{\ast }$ and ${}^{15}$N${}^{\ast }$ based on the GEMINI++ code

Abstract

Nuclear de-excitations associated with neutrino-nucleus interactions and nucleon decays are playing an increasingly significant role in neutrino experiments. We explore the GEMINI++ code and estimate its ability to account for the de-excitation processes of highly excited ${}^{11}$B${}^{\ast }$ and ${}^{15}$N${}^{\ast }$, which can be created in the liquid scintillator and water Cherenkov detectors respectively. It is found that GEMINI++ can not describe the nuclear experimental data of ${}^{11}$B${}^{\ast }$ and ${}^{15}$N${}^{\ast }$ well. To improve its performance for de-excitations of light nuclei, we modify GEMINI++ and then develop a code of GEMINI++4$\hat{I}½$, which can give the best predictions compared with experimental measurements among some widely used statistical model codes.

8 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, accepted by PLB. It will match the final version, to appear in PLB