Anharmonic vibration-rotation approach to quasimolecular spectra

A closed-form expression for the energies of known 12C + 12C and positive-parity 12C + 16O resonances was obtained assuming an anharmonic quadrupole vibration-rotation model for the colliding nuclei. The expression has a form identical to that obtained by a previous author on the basis of dipole vibrations; this result shows that the nature of the degrees of freedom dominating nuclear quasimolecules can also be well accounted for by quadrupole motion. The model describes the sequential deformation of the nuclear system before it breaks up into clusters; the strongly deformed nuclear shapes can be associated with nuclear isomerism. (author)