The16 O(α,α ′ ) reaction was studied at θ lab = 0• at an incident energy of E lab = 200 MeV using the K600 magnetic spectrometer at iThemba LABS. Proton decay and α decay from the natural parity states were observed in a large-acceptance silicon strip detector array at backward angles. The coincident charged-particle measurements were used to characterize the decay channels of the 0 Table I). The 0 the four-α-particle breakup threshold and has a large radius of 5 fm, indicating a dilute density structure. Ohkubo and Hirabayashi showed in a study of α + 12 C elastic and inelastic scattering [9] that the moment of inertia of the 0 + 6 state is drastically reduced, which suggests that it is a good candidate for the 4-α cluster condensate state. Calculations performed with the Tohsaki-Horiuchi-Schuck-Röpke (THSR) α-cluster wave function [10] also support this notion with an estimated total width of 34 keV for the 0 + 6 state [11], much smaller than the experimentally determined value of 166(30) keV [12].Recent unsuccessful attempts to measure particle decay widths of the 0 + 6 state in 16 O[17,18] highlighted the need for an experiment that combines α-particle decay measurements with a high-energy-resolution experimental setup and a reaction capable of preferentially populating 0 + states. In contrast to transfer reaction measurements, inelastic α-particle scattering at zero degrees has the advantage that it predominantly excites low-spin natural parity states. A measurement of the 16 O(α,α ′ ) reaction at zero degrees, coupled with coincident observations of the 16 O decay products, was performed at the iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences (iThemba LABS) (7) 162 (