Dynamics of ⁵⁸Ni + ⁵⁴Fe → ¹¹²Xe* reaction across the Coulomb barrier

Abstract

The dynamical cluster-decay model (DCM) has been applied to study the decay of the ¹¹²Xe^* compound nucleus formed in the massive heavy-ion reaction ⁵⁸Ni + ⁵⁴Fe at energies across the Coulomb barrier with E _c.m. ≈ 85–110 MeV. The calculations are done for spherical fragmentation as well as by including deformation and orientation degrees of freedom of the decaying fragments. DCM-based cross sections give a nice description of the experimental fusion excitation function σ _ER , within one parameter fitting, the neck length parameter (ΔR), whose value remains within the range of nuclear proximity interaction. The barrier height corresponding to the neck length parameter brings into the picture the barrier modification which enables us to address the data particularly at below barrier energies. The role of excitation energy (or temperature), deformations, orientations, angular momentum and diffuseness parameter is investigated to understand the dynamics of the ⁵⁸Ni + ⁵⁴Fe reaction. Finally the N/Z dependence of the fragmentation structure of different compound systems formed via ⁵⁸Ni beam (projectile) is explored.