  The physics of radioactive ion beams implies the description of weakly-bound
nuclear systems. One key aspect concerns the coupling to low-lying
collective-type excited states, which for these systems might not be stable
levels, but particle emitting resonances. In this work we describe how the
scattering cross section and compound spectra change when the colliding
fragments have such collective excitations featuring particle emission. We
explore this question in the framework of a multi-channel algebraic scattering
method of determining nucleon-nucleus cross sections at low energies. For a
range of light-mass, particle-unstable nuclear targets, scattering cross
sections as well as the spectra of the compound nuclei formed have been
determined from calculations that do and do not consider particle emission
widths for nuclear states. Assuming a resonance character for target states
markedly varies evaluated cross sections from those obtained assuming the
target spectrum to have entirely discrete states.
