Understanding the low-energy incomplete fusion reactions

With a motivation to find out the systematics for the low-energy (approximate to 4-7 MeV/nucleon) incomplete fusion reactions, the experimentally measured excitation functions for evaporation residues, which were populated during the interactions of 18O with 159Tb target nuclei, have been studied. The analysis clearly exhibits that the xn/pxn channels are populated to a large extent through the complete fusion processes. Although, the production cross-section of the alpha-emitting channels, despite of deducting the precursor decay contribution, found to be significantly under-estimated by the statistical model predictions. The observed enhancement, which may be attributed due to the involvement of break-up fusion processes, is found to be get larger with the incident energy. In addition, the present work in light of the literature data imparts the reliance of incomplete fusion processes on various entrance channel parameters, such as the mass-asymmetry of the interacting partners, fissility parameter and also on the ZPZT (Coulomb factor). These systematics inarguably indicates the projectile type dependency of the incomplete fusion reactions, and the results may be explained on the basis of the alpha-Q value of the projectile. Furthermore, an attempt has been made to explain the trends of incomplete fusion fractions through the total asymmetry parameter and the system parameter, where system parameter seems to explain the data more satisfactorily, as it incorporates the Coulomb factor as well as the masses of the interacting partners.