Nuclear structure effects on heavy-ion reactions with microscopic theory

Abstract

The self-consistent mean-field Hartree–Fock (HF) theory, both static and time-dependent (TDHF) versions, is used to study static and dynamic properties of fusion reactions between even ^40–54Ca isotopes and ¹¹⁶Sn. The bare nucleus-nucleus potential, calculated with the frozen HF approach, is affected by the groundstate density of the nuclei. However, once dynamical effects are included, as in TDHF, the static effects on the barrier are essentially washed out. Dynamic properties of the nuclei, including low-lying vibrational modes, are calculated with TDHF and selectively used in coupled-channels calculations to identify which modes have the most effect on the TDHF fusion threshold. Vibrations cannot fully explain the difference between the static HF and TDHF fusion barriers trend so other dynamical effects such as transfer are considered.