Break-up fusion in the 16O + 146Nd system by measurements of excitation function of evaporation residues.

Measurements of excitation function (EF) for the evaporation residues populated via complete and incomplete fusion in interaction of projectile ¹⁶O with target ¹⁴⁶Nd have been done. Stack foil activation technique has been employed for these measurements. The measured excitation functions of the four ERs ¹⁵⁸Er (4n), ¹⁵⁷Er(5n), ¹⁵⁵Dy(α3n) and ¹⁵³Dy(α5n) has been compared with statistical model code PACE-4. The present measurements show that the experimental excitation functions for xn-emission channels follow the PACE-4 predictions to a great extent, whereas, α-emission channels don't agree well and exhibits considerable enhancement from theoretical predictions. The enhancements may be ascribed to the break-up of projectile ¹⁶O resulting in incomplete fusion as PACE-4 considers only the complete fusion process. It has also been found that with increment in the projectile energy, probability of projectile break-up increases. Further, the comparison of present data with earlier measurements supports that the incomplete fusion contribution increases with the entrance channel mass asymmetry of the system, but differently for different projectiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]