Role of the diagonal and off-diagonal continuum–continuum couplings in the breakup of 8B and 19C on 58Ni and 208Pb targets

Abstract

Abstract The role of the diagonal and off-diagonal continuum–continuum couplings on Coulomb + nuclear, Coulomb and nuclear breakup cross sections is investigated for the 8B + 58Ni, 8B + 208Pb and 19C + 208Pb at 29.3, 170.3 and 1273 MeV incident energies respectively. Qualitatively, we found that, the diagonal continuum–continuum couplings are responsible for the large reduction of the differential Coulomb + nuclear and nuclear differential breakup cross sections at backward angles. At forward angles, this reduction is due to the off-diagonal continuum–continuum couplings. In the absence of these couplings, the nuclear breakup is the more dominant process, while when they are included, the Coulomb breakup becomes dominant. This shows that, the nuclear breakup is more affected by the continuum–continuum couplings than its Coulomb counterpart. Quantitatively, we found that, the off-diagonal continuum–continuum couplings reduce by 13.39%, 12.71% and 11.11% the Coulomb + nuclear breakup cross sections for the 8B + 58Ni, 8B + 208Pb and 19C + 208Pb reactions, respectively.