Large-angle quasi-elastic scattering around the Coulomb barrier

We summarize recent theoretical activities on heavy-ion quasi-elastic scattering at energies around the Coulomb barrier. We first introduce a barrier distribution defined in terms of cross sections of large-angle quasi-elastic scattering. We discuss possible advantages for its exploitation, putting a particular emphasis on future experiments with radioactive beams. We then present our recent systematic studies on quasi-elastic scattering at deep-subbarrier energies, that offer an unambiguous way to extract the surface diffuseness parameter of the nucleus-nucleus potential