Fusion barrier distribution from measurement of quasielastic scattering at θ _c.m. = 180°

Abstract Distribution of fusion barriers reveals the effect of structure of the collision partners on the dynamics of fusion between two heavy ions. Experimental barrier distribution can be extracted from precisely measured fusion excitation function. Quasielastic excitation function is related to fusion excitation function by conservation of incident flux. Hence, barrier distribution can also be extracted from quasielastic excitation function, which is usually measured at large angles, by detecting the back-scattered projectile-like ions. However, the reflectance coefficient is exactly complementary to the transmittance coefficient at θ c.m. = 180°, which corresponds to orbital angular momentum, ℓ = 0. We report here extraction of fusion barrier distribution for 16 O+ 142 Ce from measurement of quasielastic scattering at θ c.m. = 180°, by detecting the target-like ions in the forward angles using a recoil mass spectrometer. Quasielastic excitation functions were also measured by detecting the projectile-like ions at two large angles. Barrier distributions extracted from both fusion and quasielastic measurements were found to be nearly identical. This work, thus, provided the first experimental verification of validity of the scaling property and the iso-centrifugal approximation in extracting barrier distribution from quasielastic excitation functions measured at large angles.