Heavy-ion transfer reactions of argon beams on deformed and spherical targets

Heavy-ion transfer reactions have proven to be something more than what was first thought to be a trivial extension of the work with light ions. When a complete quantum mechanical analysis of their reactions is done, heavy ions present both experimental and calculational problems which do not arise for light ions. However, because of the increased mass in the heavy-ion reactions, an analysis by classical mechanics may prove quite accurate. Further, the shorter wavelength of the heavy ions may give more detailed information on the nuclear structure of the target they are scattered from. The shape of the target nucleus, specified as the deformation from a sphere, is one kind of information which should be tested in reactions. With a simple classical argument, it is predicted that the effect of nuclear deformation will be a more gradual rise in the excitation functions for heavy-ion reactions. Besides looking for this effect, the differential cross section is compared with various theories. For the Semi-Classical Transfer Theory (SCTT), even though rather large error bars are associated with the data, it is found that this theory is unsatisfactory above the Coulomb barrier because it cannot predict the rather broad distribution of differential cross section with angle which is observed in the data