Universal trend for heavy-ion total reaction cross-sections at energies above the Coulomb barrier**Dedicated to CBPF—Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas in its celebration of the 60th anniversary of its foundation.

Abstract

Heavy-ion total reaction cross-section measurements for more than 1100 reaction cases covering 61 target nuclei in the range 6Li–238U and 158 projectile nuclei from 2H to 84Kr (mostly exotic ones) have been analyzed in a systematic way by using an empirical, three-parameter formula that is applicable to the cases of projectile kinetic energies above the Coulomb barrier. The analysis has shown that the average total nuclear binding energy per nucleon of the interacting nuclei and their radii are the chief quantities that describe the cross-section patterns. A great amount of cross-section data (87%) has been quite satisfactorily reproduced by the proposed formula; therefore, the total reaction cross-section predictions for new, not yet experimentally investigated reaction cases can be obtained within 25% (or much less) uncertainty.