Penetration of the centrifugal barrier in the fusion of 16O with heavy targets

Gamma ray multiplicities and rotational band transition intensities have been measured for the 154Sm(16O, 4n) reaction for bombarding energies between 62.5 and 73.5 MeV. It is shown that centrifugal barrier penetration leads to a fairly broad spin distribution of the compound nucleus even at near-barrier energies. The results are discussed in terms of optical model absorption probabilities and parabolic barrier penetration probabilities