Cross sections of heavy-ion fusion have been found to be enhanced at sub-barrierenergies. This fusion enhancement is attributed to the coupling of theintrinsic degrees of freedom of the reactants to the relative motion. Neutrontransfer has been suggested as a doorway to fusion. In reactions induced byneutron-rich radioactive nuclei, there can be a large number of neutrontransfer channels with positive Q-values. These reactions are good candidatesfor studying the effects of coupling to transfer on sub-barrier fusionenhancement. In this talk, fusion excitation functions for reactions involvingstable and neutron-rich radioactive nuclei are compared. The influence ofneutron transfer on sub-barrier fusion enhancement is prominent in 132Sn+40Cabut not in 132Sn+58Ni. To better understand the reaction mechanisms, a highprecision measurement of the fusion excitation function for 46Ti+124Sn wasperformed. The barrier distribution was deduced from the excitation functionin order to resolve the difference observed in the 132Sn+40Ca and 132Sn+58Nifusion. Future studies using lighter neutron-rich radioactive nuclei will bediscussed.This research was supported by the Office of Nuclear Physics, US Department ofEnergy.

Effects of neutron transfer on the sub-barrier fusion rate

246th National Meeting (2013)

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