A preliminary study of reactions induced by uranium in silver and gold

Heavy ion reactions with inverse kinematics (i.e. projectile heavier than target) are ideally suited to an experimental set-up based on 2π-detection geometry. By using mica as an SSNTD, it has been found that, in this situation, the reaction products are predominantly confined to a cone within which the etched tracks can be measured most reliably. The major reaction modes (i.e. elastic scattering and sequential fission) can then be identified by performing kinematical analysis of the track data. Here we present the track data characteristics and the statistics of multiprong events observed with mica in the case of (16.7 MeV/u) 238U incident on 197Au and (8.7 MeV/u) 238U incident on 108Ag. In both cases, the partial cross-sections for different multibody channels are calculated and the total reaction cross-sections are estimated. These values have been compared with the theoretical predictions based on the systematics of nuclear radii. In the case of binary events, we have isolated the elastic sub-set by using the criterion of angular correlation valid for elastic scattering. Detailed kinematical analysis of these reactions is under progress. (author)