Reactions of 24Mg with 16O

The authors have recently performed an experiment to measure the angular distribution of the oxygen and carbon particles from the 16O(24Mg,16O)24Mg and 16O(24Mg,12C)28Si reactions at E/sub Lab/ = 79.5 MeV at back angles. The motivation for this measurement is to find out whether the large inelastic cross sections observed at backward angles in the carbon and oxygen channels in the 28Si + 12C reaction are due to a compound nuclear process. The authors form a 40Ca nucleus by the 24Mg + 16O reaction at the same excitation energy and approximately the same angular momentum (within 5%) as for the 28Si + 12C reaction and compare the relative intensities of the carbon and oxygen yields. If they see an entrance-channel effect, then the back-angle yields cannot be attributed to a compound nuclear process