Neutron transfer versus inelastic surface vibrations in the enhancement of sub-barrier fusion excitation function data and the energy dependent Woods–Saxon potential

Abstract

This work deeply analyzed the relative importance of the neutron transfer channels and inelastic surface vibrations of colliding nuclei in the sub-barrier fusion enhancement of various heavy ion systems using an energy dependent Woods–Saxon potential (EDWSP) model in conjunction with a one-dimensional Wong formula and the coupled channel formulation using the code CCFULL. The multi-phonon vibrational states of colliding nuclei and the nucleon transfer channels are found to be dominant internal degrees of freedom. The coupling between the relative motion of reactants and these relevant channels produces anomalously large sub-barrier fusion enhancement over the expectations of the one-dimensional barrier penetration model. In some cases, the influence of neutron transfer dominates over the couplings to low lying surface vibrational states of collision partners. Furthermore, the effects of coupling to inelastic surface excitations and the impact of neutron transfer channels with positive ground state Q-values are imitated due to energy dependence in the Woods–Saxon potential. In the EDWSP model calculations, a wide range for the diffuseness parameter, which is much larger than the value extracted from the elastic scattering data, is needed to account for the observed fusion enhancement in the close vicinity of the Coulomb barrier.