Decay of 160Er* in 16O + 144Nd and 64Ni + 96Zr Fusion Reactions

Abstract

The population of evaporation residue entry states in the decay of the compound nucleus 160Er*(54 MeV) is investigated in a cross-bombardment employing the reactions 160 + 144Nd and 64Ni + 96Zr. Evaporation residue cross sections and entry state 7-ray fold distributions of the dominant exit channels were obtained for each reaction, using a 4π 7-ray detection system. An entrance-channel dependence of the 7-ray fold distributions of the xn products is observed. This effect is described successfully by the statistical model making use of compound nucleus angular momentum distributions obtained with a fusion model that provides a good description of the bombarding energy dependence of fusion data for both reactions. In accordance with recent findings on the decay of 164Yb*, it is suggested that the observed differences in the population of the dominant exit channels originate from the primary spin distributions rather than a possible dependence of the compound nucleus decay on the formation mode.