Distribution of reaction strength in /sup 32/S+/sup 182/W collisions

The reaction /sup 32/S+ /sup 182/W has been studied at beam energies of 166, 177, 222, and 260 MeV with the goal of accounting for the distribution of the total reaction cross section among the main reaction channels. Cross sections as well as mass and energy distributions were measured over the entire angular range from 100 to 1700 for elastic (which includes quasi-elastic), deep-inelastic, and fission-like products. Deep inelastic scattering accounts for a substantial fraction of the total reaction cross section at all energies, in particular near the barrier. This behavior is not predicted by current theories such as the extra push model. The angular distributions of fission-like products are more anisotropic than expected on the basis of the saddle point model at the two lowest energies, indicating a sizable contribution from quasi-fission processes, which is estimated from a quantitative analysis of this deviation