Low energy incomplete fusion and its relevance to the synthesis of super heavy elements

Abstract

To study the presence of incomplete fusion at energies around the Coulomb-barrier and to understand its dependence on various entrance-channel parameters, the incomplete fusion fractions have been deduced (i) from excitation function measurements for 18O,13,12C+159Tb, and (ii) from forward recoil range measurements for 12C+159Tb systems, at low energies (<7MeV/A). The data have been analyzed within the framework of compound nucleus decay, which suggests the production of xn/pxn-channels via complete fusion, as these are found to be well reproduced by PACE4 predictions, while, a significant enhancement in the excitation functions of α-emitting channels has been observed over the theoretical ones, which has been attributed due to the incomplete fusion processes. Further, the incomplete fusion events observed in case of forward recoil ranges have been explained on the basis of the breakup fusion model, where these events may be attributed to the fusion of 8Be and/or 4He from 12C projectile to the target nucleus. For better insight into the underlying dynamics, the deduced fractions of incomplete fusion have been compared with other nearby systems as a function of various entrance channel parameters. The incomplete fusion has been found to be sensitive to the projectile’s energy and alpha-Q-value of the projectile.