Physics Letters B 739 (2014) 348–351
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
Energy-shifting formulae yield reliable reaction and capture
probabilities
A. Diaz-Torres
a,∗
, G.G. Adamian
b
, V.V. Sargsyan
b,c
, N.V. Antonenko
b
a
European Centre for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas (ECT
∗
), Strada delle Tabarelle 286, I-38123 Villazzano, Trento, Italy
b
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia
c
Yerevan State University, M. Manougian 1, 0025, Yerevan, Armenia
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received
29 September 2014
Received
in revised form 5 November 2014
Accepted
6 November 2014
Available
online 8 November 2014
Editor:
J.-P. Blaizot
Predictions of energy-shifting formulae for partial reaction and capture probabilities are compared with
coupled channels calculations. The quality of the agreement notably improves with increasing mass of
the system and/or decreasing mass asymmetry in the heavy-ion collision. The formulae are reliable and
useful for circumventing impracticable reaction calculations at low energies.
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
The physics of low-energy nuclear reactions is critical for un-
derstanding
energy production and nucleosynthesis in the uni-
verse [1].
The heavy-ion collisions at energies near the Coulomb
barrier are highly affected by the interplay of nuclear structure and
reaction dynamics [2–4], the bare Coulomb barrier being modified
by couplings and centrifugal effects. Coupled-reaction-channels
(crc) calculations provide partial, transmission and reflection co-
efficients
that determine a number of reaction observables such
as capture and reaction cross sections. Although feasible nowadays
within various implementations [5,6], the crc calculations can be
sometimes computationally demanding and time consuming [7],
so a simple formula for the partial transmission and reflection co-
efficients
seems to be useful. The energy-shifting formula has a
long history across disciplines [8,9]. The present paper addresses
the quality of energy-shifting formulae for partial reaction and
capture probabilities at near-barrier energies. We first present the
energy-shifting formulae and a description of the crc calculations,
followed by results and a summary.
2. Energy-shifting formulae
The key idea of the energy-shifting formula [8–10] consists
in replacing the exact, reaction and capture probabilities for a
nonzero partial wave J and a given incident energy E, P
reac
(E, J)
and P
cap
(E, J), with the corresponding s-wave probabilities evalu-
ated
at a lower energy:
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail
address: torres@ectstar.eu (A. Diaz-Torres).
P
i
(E, J ) ≈ P
i
(
J
, J = 0), (1)
where i ={reac, cap} and
J
= E − E
rot
( J ), E
rot
( J ) being inter-
preted
as a rotational energy. In the present paper, E
rot
( J ) is cal-
culated
in two different ways:
(i) The
first way relies on expanding the Coulomb barrier height,
V
B
( J ), up to second order in Λ = J( J + 1), and subtracting
the
s-wave potential barrier, V
B
(0), so the rotational energy
reads as [8]:
E
rot
( J) =
¯
h
2
Λ
2μR
2
B
+
¯
h
4
Λ
2
2μ
3
ω
2
B
R
6
B
, (2)
where μ denotes the reduced mass of the projectile–target ra-
dial
motion, R
B
and ω
B
are the radius and curvature of the
s-wave barrier, respectively. Using the lowest order in Eq. (2),
an energy-shifting formula has been used for deriving the
well-known Wong formula [11,12]. The second order correc-
tion
term in Eq. (2) takes into account the dependence of the
barrier radius on the angular momentum.
(ii) The
second way is based on a nuclear-modified Rutherford tra-
jectory
for the near-barrier projectile–target orbit [13], E
rot
( J )
being identified as the rotational energy at the distance of
closest approach:
E
rot
( J) = E
(η
2
+ J
2
)
1/2
− η
(η
2
+ J
2
)
1/2
+ η
, (3)
where η
= Z
μ/2
¯
h
2
E is an effective Sommerfeld parameter
that takes into consideration the nuclear part of the nucleus–
nucleus
interaction potential through Z
= Z
P
Z
T
e
2
(1 − a
0
/R
B
)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2014.11.007
0370-2693/
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Funded by
SCOAP
3
.