Semiclassical description of multipair transfer processes in heavy ion collisions with superfluid systems

Abstract

Pair transfer processes involving a superfluid system are studied in terms of phase space distributions constructed in a product representation which blends both ordinary- and gauge-space degrees of freedom. The time evolution of these distributions is followed by solving a collection of classical equations of motion, the quantal fluctuations being accounted for by the sampling of all possible initial orientations of the (undetermined) intrinsic system in gauge space. The excitation of the pairing rotational degree of freedom — corresponding to a variation in the number of particles — is induced by a gauge-deformed ion-ion potential, as befits the superfluid character of the target. Different orientations leading to the same final mass transfer may produce (in the case of large pairing deformation) interference effects in the final population of the members of the pairing rotational band. We also discuss how this approach can be used to describe the effect of pair transfer modes on sub-barrier fusion processes.